“The idea!”
Kirk was busying himself with the chafing-dish.
“What have you got in here, Steve?”
“Lobster, colonel. I had to do thirty miles to get it, too.”
Mamie looked at him fixedly.
“Were you going to feed lobster to this child?” she asked with ominous calm. “Were you intending to put him to bed full of broiled lobster and marshmallows?”
“Nix on the rough stuff, Mamie,” pleaded the embarrassed pugilist. “How was I to know what kids feed on? And maybe he would have passed up the lobster at that and stuck to the sardines.”
“Sardines!”
“Ain’t kids allowed sardines?” said Steve anxiously. “The guy at the store told me they were wholesome and nourishing. It looked to me as if that ought to hit young Fitzsimmons about right. What’s the matter with them?”
“A little bread-and-milk is all that he ever has before he goes to bed.”