“Do tell him that,” the fond wife urged. “The very surest way to Michael’s heart is through his buffet. I knew he’d taken to mixing cocktails in a graduated chemist’s glass, but this excursion into the chemistry of drinks is rather alarming. He would have been a most conscientious bartender.”
“Does he really drink much?” Nora demanded.
“Not when I’m at home,” Alice declared. “Nothing after one. If he goes to bed then he’s all right; if he doesn’t, he sits up till five going the pace that fills. I wouldn’t mind if it made him amusing, but it makes him merely sleepy. But he doesn’t drink nearly as much as most of the men he knows. What makes you think he does, is that he makes such a ceremony out of drinking. I don’t think he enjoys drinking alone. Nora,” she added, “do sit down; you make me dizzy.”
“I can’t,” Nora told her. “I always stand up for twenty minutes after each meal. It keeps you thin.”
“Does it?” Mrs. Harrington asked eagerly, rising from her comfortable chair. “Does it really? Still, I lost nine pounds abroad!”
“Goodness!” Nora cried enviously. “How?”
“Buttermilk!” Alice cried triumphantly.
“And I walked four miles this morning in a rubber suit and three sweaters, and gained half a pound,” Nora declared disconsolately.
“I do wish hips would come in again,” Alice Harrington sighed. “Ah, here come the men,” she said more brightly, as the three entered.
Michael was still bearing, with what modesty he could, the encomiums on a purple punch he had brewed after exhaustive laboratory experiments.