“Wishy-washy chicken! How I hate tin cans! Pancakes and maple syrup! What?”
“Sliced tomatoes with sugar and vinegar!”
“You don’t mean that!”
“I do! I don’t care how plebeian it is. Bread and butter and sliced tomatoes with sugar and vinegar—better than all the ice cream that ever was! Childhood ambrosia! For mercy’s sake, let’s get in before all the wings are gone!”
They entered the huge dining room with its pattering Chinese boys—entered it laughing—while 61 all the time there was at bottom a single identical thought—the father.
Would they see him again? Would he be here at one of the tables? Would a break come, or would the affair go on eternally?
“I know what it is!” he cried, breaking through the spell.
“What?”
“Ever read ‘Phra the Phœnician’?”
“Why, yes. But what is what?”