"Anything ail you, Ma?" I says.
"Nothing much," says Ma, lighting into the cream-cake. "Nothing to speak of."
"Tell me about it then!" I says. But Ma wouldn't. She heaved a big sigh and handed me a substitute for what was really on her mind. It was something just as good, I credit her for that.
"You know the stuff you ordered from Schultz?" she says.
"You mean the wet goods I ordered to keep Jim from parching to death this summer?" I says, because although Jim is far from a real drinking man, he having his profession of dancing always in mind even after eleven P. M. and Gawd knows never fails to realize that sound acrobatics is the basis of all good dancing which a drunkard never yet was, or at least not for over two seasons; still, in spite of all this, Jim is a mere male and a drink or two, especially if difficult to get, is not by any means objectionable to him. And beside he had been two years in France and I didn't want him to feel it had anything on America when he come home, even if I had to go so far as to myself personally replace what Congress had taken away. Do you get me? You do! And I had done it as far as my bank account, cellarette and the liquor-dealer permitted. Which looked like it was going to postpone the drought quite sometime for us. And while here and there stuff like champagne and brandy and vermouth had to be bought, like remnants on a bargain counter—just kind of odds and ends of each—I had one satisfaction out of the buy, and that was getting a case of Old Home Rye—absolutely the last case in the city—probably the last in the whole entire U. S. A., and it was Jim's one best bet. A high-ball of this—just one—with his dinner was about his exact idea of drinking, and I had calculated that the three gallons, taking it at his rate would last him pretty near a year, and by that time some new vice would surely of been invented to take its place.
Well, anyways, I had ordered it and paid for it, and there wasn't any more of it anywheres, and it and the contract with Goldringer was two of the best surprises I had for Jim.
"Well," says Ma. "I can't say I approve of the demon Rum coming into our—your house, but once money is paid out, I like to see the goods—all the goods, delivered," she says.
"What's this leading up to?" I asked.
"To the way that man Schultz cheats you!" says Ma. "He didn't send the Old Home Rye!"