"Heavens!" the woman gasped. "Giving liquor to babies! No wonder they're retarded!"
Toffee, recognizing the situation for what it was, displayed what she believed was great presence of mind in grabbing the tell-tale bottle from the shelf and lifting it to her own lips. She drank deeply of the contents, and just to lend conviction to her performance as a ravening drunkard, staggered against the bookshelves, rolling her eyes loosely in their sockets.
"Oh, dear," Mr. Culpepper put in from the perch on the shelf. "If I were you, I don't think I'd...."
A little moan issued from the colorless face in the bookshelf. "Oooo, what depravity!" it exclaimed. "And teaching the babies to drink, too!"
"Nonsense," Toffee said, addressing the face openly. "We're drinking this ourselves. We're just a bunch of roaring sots. We're too stingy to give any to the babies."
"I saw you," the face insisted. "You were forcing the filthy stuff on those infants. You ought to be reported."
Toffee turned to Marc. "We weren't either, were we?" she asked. "We never give these babies any liquor, do we?"
"Certainly not," Marc said indignantly. "We were only fighting them off, trying to keep them from taking it away from us. We love the stuff too much to waste it on them."
In demonstration, he grabbed the bottle that had been Chadwick's and pressed it eagerly to his mouth, a fanatical gleam in his eye.
"Oh, really," Mr. Culpepper cried. "I really don't think...."