“I can’t drink that stuff,” he sputtered. “It’s all pepper.”
146“That doesn’t make any difference,” said Slim, unmoved. “Drink it anyway.”
And they made him do it. Cupful after cupful they forced upon him, threatening an immediate diet of soap whenever he paused. After the fifth cup Anthony began to suspect that it was not wise to make rash statements about the capacity of the human stomach; after the sixth he was entirely convinced. The results of that sixth cup made the judges decide to suspend the last of the sentence. Anthony had got all that was coming to him.
A sorrier or more subdued boy never lived than Anthony that night.
“It was heroic treatment,” said Uncle Teddy thoughtfully to Aunt Clara, as they wandered off by themselves in the moonlight, “but it took something like that to make any impression on him. He is the most insufferable little braggart that ever lived. I only hope the impression made was deep enough.”
And beyond a doubt it was, for never again was Anthony heard to utter a boast in the presence of the rest.
147CHAPTER IX
THE DARK OF THE MOON SOCIETY
Gladys stood in her tent under the big murmuring pine tree washing handkerchiefs in her washbasin. “I haven’t enough left to last any time at all now,” she confided plaintively to Sahwah, “and I had three dozen when I came. They’re all gone where the good handkerchiefs go, I guess. Somebody is forever getting cut and needing a bandage in a hurry and my handkerchief is invariably the one to be sacrificed to the emergency.”
“That’s what you get for always having a clean one,” remarked Sahwah. “Mine are never in fit condition to be used for bandages, consequently I still have them all.”