"Oh, yes!" replied Mrs. "Judge." "That would be very nice. And the closets can all pass in front of us, and I can have a little talk with them." So Ruth looked down again into the room where the children had been playing, and saw that it was quite light and the children were all gone. At once she called the closets.
"I've got a list of their names in my pocket," she explained to Mrs. "Judge." "We can't remember as you can. Even as it is, mother's all the time losing something in some of the closets, and she tries so hard to think where she puts things. She ought to carry a blank-book with her, and set everything down." The Judge's wife was rested now, so that she sat up and took her place before the hole in the clock. The baby was back again in the arms of his namesake. Then Ruth shouted out the names of the closets. "Champagne," she cried. This was the name of the wine-closet. It was a big black hole in the main cellar, just under the parlor. Very soon there was a heavy tread in the west parlor where the clock stood, and in swung Champagne. Although such a great closet he looked very thin and dismal.
"Good-evening," said the Judge's wife.
"How do you do?" replied Champagne; and there was a great deal of pain in his voice.
"You don't seem happy," said Mrs. "Judge."
"I'm thirsty;" and the closet's voice sounded as if a fever had parched it. "Poor folks live here now. They haven't put a bottle of wine into me in forty years. I'm drying up. I shall cave in one of these days."
"That would be dreadful, wouldn't it?" exclaimed Ruth. "Would the house go down if the wine-cellar caved in?"
"Hope so," answered Champagne testily. "Don't even keep wine for sick folk. Somebody did put a couple of bottles of something into me when the children had the measles, but somebody else came and stole it out of me. I thought I'd help bring the measles out, but they didn't give me a chance."
"Poor fellow!" exclaimed Mrs. "Judge." "I'm sorry for you. But these are days of total abstinence, you know. You mustn't expect much wine. Don't they keep butter in you?"