The bitterness of it went into me.
"Quail on toast?" I cried with sarcasm. "Change it now, my dear; write them all a note at once and tell them tomcat is better, for that's all I've killed to-day! Just make it tomcat on toast!"
Eloise looked at me curiously. "Jack, I believe you have taken one of those cheap drinks."
"One?" I said. "I drank a flask of it. I had to or faint when I saw poor old Uncle Thomas come out of the rear end of that hearse as natural as life."
"Oh!" said Eloise, putting her fingers in her ears. "Come in, dearie, and I'll give you another, poor dear!"
But it was rubbed in on me that night. It was midnight when Eloise came to my room. I heard one of the twins crying. "Come here, Jack," she said laughing. "One of them wants you, has waked up crying for you."
She was sitting up in bed and her lamentations were loud. At sight of me she broke out, "Daddy—you brought sister a dead cat and—and—wouldn't—bring me—me—one!"
To jolly her into good humor, as I often did, I picked her up and turned her a somersault in the bed: I was unfortunate again—that accursed cat and automobile!
Accidentally her head was bumped.
In blazing indignation, she sat up and spat upon me!