And Carruthers was planted with pen and ink while the others discussed ways and means.
“It’ll need peculiar things to drink,” said Hill, undiscouraged by his lack of success. “My sister has one that size, little Jimmie, and it drinks—let’s see—something you see advertised. I don’t know but it’s some sort of whiskey.”
“Oh, no,” said Duncan decidedly. “I’m sure it couldn’t. Awful way to begin to raise a kid. I’m against that.”
“Well, perhaps I’ve got it twisted,” acknowledged Hill. “But it’s one of those things.”
“Little Jimmie has naps,” went on Hill. “They sing him to sleep.”
“Holy Moses!” groaned Fitzhugh, who was the musician. “I see myself singing this thing to sleep!”
“And they change little Jimmie’s dresses afternoons, and put on clean ones—why, sometimes he’s dressed as much as four times a day.” Hill’s face was rapt with reminiscent pride.
“Look here, Topsy,” said Fitzhugh nervously; “you’d better not get the idea that this kid is to be modelled on your little Jimmie. Not much. If it comes out alive from its outing to the country, it’s all we ask. Most of the time we’ve got to keep it up the chimney.”
“Let’s turn Wipes on the case,” suggested Jack Duncan, the fruitful thinker. “He has kids of his own, and he can get points from his wife. He’ll keep it dark, too.”
For Wipes was an old collaborator in crime. He was what the cadets call a “policeman,” an orderly detailed to take care of cadets’ quarters.