"My!" jeered Amy. "I suppose you bought an automobile?"
"No; they hadn't been invented yet." He turned again to Jean. "Guess what I did buy!"
"More apparatus."
"Just as quick as I could get a money-order," he laughed. "You're something of a wizard yourself. You must have been a boy once upon a time."
"Yes," said Jean; "I was."
When they reached the street Paul suggested oysters, and after a faint demurrer from Jean, which a secret pinch from Amy abruptly quenched, he led the way to a restaurant. The establishment he chose had a German name, and was fitted up in a manner which Jean took to be German also. The chairs and tables were of a heavy medieval design, and matched the high paneling which surrounded the room and terminated in a shelf bearing a curious array of mugs and flagons. From a small dais in one corner an orchestra, made up of a zither, two mandolins, and a guitar, discoursed a wiry yet not unpleasant music which seemed, on the whole, less Teuton than American, of a most unclassical bounce and joyousness. Paul apologized for this flaw in an otherwise harmonious scheme, explaining that the American patrons outnumbered the German, but Amy patriotically declared that ragtime was better than foreign music any day, and pronounced the entire place as cute as it could be, which really left nothing else to be said.
Everybody was drinking beer with his food, or, speaking more accurately, eating a little food with his beer, and Paul ordered two or three bottles of the exceedingly dark variety most in vogue, which he and Amy consumed. Amy rallied Jean upon her abstinence, and asked if she had signed the pledge; but Paul seemed to respect her scruples.
"Felt the same way myself once," he said. "Whenever the good old scandal specialists up our way saw a fellow slide into the hotel on a hot day for a glass of lager, they thought he was piking straight for the eternal bonfire. Naturally the boys punished a lot of stuff they didn't want, just to live up to their reputations. It's some different down here."
"I should say so," agreed Amy, boisterously. "Why, my stepfather began to send me out for beer almost as soon as I could walk. The idea of its hurting anybody! I don't believe I'd feel it if I drank a keg."
Paul did not seem as impressed by this statement as were an after-theater party at an adjoining table, and embraced a quiet opportunity to move an unfinished bottle out of her enthusiastic reach. Jean glowed under the scrutiny of the supper-party opposite, and, exchanging a look with Paul, rose presently to go. Amy objected eloquently, pointing out that it still wanted half an hour of midnight and that department stores did no business Sundays, together with sundry arguments as trenchant, which plainly carried weight with the attentive tables roundabout, but failed to convince her companions. Near the door she fell in with an unexpected ally in the person of Mr. Rose, who listened to her protests quite as sympathetically as if they had not already reached him across the room, and promptly invited them all to what he termed a nightcap with himself. Jean declined civilly, and Amy, though sore tempted, followed her example. Once outside, however, she asserted her perfect independence by walking off with Mr. Rose on his remarking easily that he would stroll their way.