“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Nurse,” answered Pauline dryly; “but the fact is we don’t keep wine on tap at this inn. Wouldn’t pepper-tea do as well?”
Weezy shook her head doubtfully.
“Won’t pepper-tea tickle its poor little throat, Pauline, and make it cough?”
“Not if the tea is well taken before shaken, Nurse,” replied Pauline solemnly.
“Please put lots of sugar in, then,” said Weezy.
The pepper-tea proved so fine a remedy, that on the arrival of the boys, half an hour later, Weezy could assure them that her patient had begun to “take notice.”
After dinner The Merry Five adjourned to the parlor tent to finish Mèdor’s epitaph. Each one wrote something, though Weezy’s share was only part of a line.
“However, there’s enough of it, such as it is, and it’s good enough, what there is of it,” said Paul, repeating a worn-out joke.
When the four stanzas were completed, Paul copied them neatly with his small type-writer, and passed them to Molly to be admired.
“You’ve printed the epitaph beautifully, Paul—on cardboard too. Oh, I do hope the Wassons won’t call it doggerel!”