Then he straightened up and boomed out, "What'll it be, friends? The drinks are on the house!" And they were, too—several quick, happy rounds of them. Even Lucky got a cocktail compounded of milk, egg white, powdered sugar and gin. On Phil's advice Moe put it behind the bar so Lucky could consume it in private.
Buck let out an adolescent guffaw and handed two guns, butt-first, to Brimstine.
"Reckon I better check my shootin' arns, podner," he explained, adapting his hillbilly accent to cowboy lingo. Moe accepted them, tested one by shooting out a light in the ceiling, and put them away. Likewise Carstairs gave up his weapons, with the added injunction that Moe was to sell them and use the money to buy more liquor when the bar gave out.
Juno, with a smacking big whiskey in front of her, leaned across Phil and assured Mary, "From now on, I'll believe every word nuts tell me, especially you and Sash."
"And I'll always tell you when we're lying," Mary assured her back, rather mumblingly, since Dion was nuzzling her.
As customers drifted into the bar by ones and twos, Brimstine called them to join the party. As soon as they did, they became as friendly and glowing as anyone else. After a time there was a small crowd and Moe did nothing but pour, shake and serve. Shortly he quit the shaking part.
Mary broke away from Dion and picked up the Brimstine doll and hugged and kissed it, saying, "You dear, dear man." Moe paused for a moment in his bartending to shut his eyes and quake ecstatically.
Then Lucky came out from under the bar and jumped on it and walked up and down in a very lordly way but with a definite lurch. After a bit he jumped down in front of the bar and the crowd parted for him. The drunken green creature zigzagged with dignity toward an exit.
Moe heaved himself over the bar, spilling several drinks, and called out, "Come on, everyone, let's have fun! Everything at Double AP is free!"
And so a bacchanalian procession began to weave through All Pleasures Amusement Park, with Moe serving as Bacchus, Lucky as a leopard, and, thought Phil, if the others only knew about Dion.