"Maidie wife, they have some capital cider at the Canteen and I ordered some sent over."
Miss Sanford looked up inquiringly over her poised spoonful of soup.
"The—Canteen?" she asked.
"Yes. The Post Exchange, it is called officially. It's the post shop, restaurant, club, amusement hall, etc.," answered the head of the house, while Marion, his wife, glanced just a trifle nervously at her niece.
"But why—Canteen? It isn't, is it, a—bar?" And Miss Sanford's tone betrayed the depth of her disapprobation of the name.
"Yes, and no," said Uncle Will pleasantly, his dark eyes twinkling under their heavy brows and lashes. He rather liked to have 'Cilla mount her successive hobbies, and thought it better, as a rule, to let her air her theories first in the sanctity of the family circle. "After experimenting a hundred years or so we found it wiser to prescribe the drinks as well as the meats of our men, and to provide a place for them at home where they can have rational amusement and refreshment, rather than send them out into the world where they get the worst of everything."
"But, uncle, do you mean you let—you encourage—these young soldiers to—drink?" And the slender gold chain of Miss Sanford's intellectual pince nez began to quiver, as did the lady's sensitive nostrils.
"Encourage? No! Let? Yes, so long as it is nothing but sound beer or light wine—things we buy for them from the most reliable dealers and provide them practically at cost. You see they have their own clubroom, and billiards, checkers, chess, dominoes, coffee, cake and sandwiches. It keeps them here. It helps and contents them. They can't drink more than is good for them."
"Is it good for them that they should drink—at all?" demanded Priscilla.
"Possibly not. The ascetic in everything would be, physically perhaps, the ideal soldier. But precious few soldiers are ascetics, though many are total abstainers."