north-easter played on.

At noon Aunt Stanshy said, "What will you have for dinner?"

"May I order it, the way I did at a saloon in Boston last summer? May I
write what I want on paper, and put it on the table?"

"Yes, if orderin' will make it taste better, and it seems to affect some
folks' vittles that way."

So Charlie and Aunt Stanshy "played saloon." He wrote his order on a slip
of paper, and left it on the table for her inspection while he went up
stairs. Directing her spectacles toward it, she read, with some amazement,
this request:

"Please bring me for dinner, a pickle Aunt Stanshy, would be what you know
nice to toast."

"Toasted pickle!" exclaimed Aunt Stanshy, in alarm.

Charlie had now returned to the sitting-room.

"You don't mean, Charles Pitt, a toasted pickle!"

"Why, no; ha! ha! There are two things on that paper. I said, 'Please
bring me for dinner, Aunt Stanshy, what you know to toast.' That is on one
side, and on the other, 'A pickle would be nice,' and I see now that you
could read the words straight across, and it would mean what you say; ha!
ha! I don't expect a pickle, of course, for I am sick, you know."