Well, what Uncle Hiram could do was to take one of the tables in a row of little alcoves. The table had seats built on two sides of it, and there were pink and blue curtains that could be drawn across the doorway, so that the alcove was almost like a separate room. Elizabeth Ann and Doris sat on one side of the table, and Uncle Hiram sat on the other, while a little waitress in a pink and white frock and a green apron brought them hot rolls filled with creamed chicken, and glasses of milk and, for Tony, a green and white enameled dish with tiny pieces of liver all cut up ready for him to eat.
“Here’s your lunch, Tony,” Elizabeth Ann whispered, opening the basket carefully.
Out popped the white head and green eyes of Tony. He looked around the alcove and apparently approved of it. The dish of liver was on the floor and Elizabeth Ann put him down beside it and he went to eating not greedily, but daintily and slowly, as Tony always ate.
“You’ll be eating supper in the Bonnie Susie to-night,” said Uncle Hiram, looking hard at Doris’s glass of milk.
Doris thought he meant her to drink it (which he did) and she took a long swallow.
“Is—is the Bonnie Susie a house or a boat?” asked Elizabeth Ann, her curiosity getting the better of her.
“Wait and see,” Uncle Hiram said with a smile.
“It’s a boat!” declared Doris. “I told you it was a boat, Elizabeth Ann.”
“Well, you——” began Elizabeth Ann.
She had intended to say, “You never saw it,” and suggest that Doris might be mistaken.