It took us most all the morning to carry the Game down-stairs. We carried it to the Dining Room. It covered the table. It covered the chairs. It strewed the sideboard. It spilled over on the floor. There was a pair of white muslin angel wings all spangled over with silver and gold! There was a fairy wand! There was a shining crown! There was a blue satin clock! There was a yellow plush suit and swishy-tail all painted sideways in stripes like a tiger! There was a most furious tiger head with whisk-broom whiskers! There was a green frog's head! And a green frog's suit! There was a witch's hat and cape! And a hump on the back! There were bows and arrows! There were boxes and boxes of milliner's flowers! There were strings of beads! And yards and yards of dungeon chains made out of silver paper! And a real bugle! And red Chinese lanterns! And—and everything!
The Rich Man came in a gold-colored car to see it work. When he saw the Dining Room he sickened. He bit his cigar.
"My daughter Posie is ten years old," he said. "What I ordered for her was a Game!—not a Trousseau!"
Our Aunt Esta shivered her hands. She shrugged her shoulders.
"You don't understand," she said. "This is no paltry Toy to be exhausted and sickened of in a single hour! This is a real Game! Eth-ical! Psycho-psycho—logical! Unendingly diverting! Hour after hour! Day after day!—Once begun, you understand, it's never over!"
The Rich Man looked at his watch.
"I have to be in Chicago a week from tomorrow!" he said.
Somebody giggled. It couldn't have been Rosalee, of course. Because Rosalee is seventeen. And, of course, it wasn't Carol. So it must have been me.
The Rich Man gave an awful glare.
"Who are these children?" he demanded.