Yet the "Pirate's Den" is "dry"--straw-dry, brick-dry
--as dry as the Sahara. If you want a "drink" the well-mannered
"cut-throat" who serves you will give you a mighty mug of ginger ale
or sarsaparilla. And if you are a real Villager and can still play at
being a real pirate, you drink it without a smile, and solemnly
consider it real red wine filched at the edge of the cutlass from
captured merchantmen on the high seas. On the big, dark centre table
is carefully drawn the map of "Treasure Island."
The pirate who serves you (incidentally he writes poetry and helps to
edit a magazine among other things) apologises for the lack of a
Stevensonian parrot.
"A chap we know is going to bring one back from the South Sea
Islands," he declares seriously. "And we are going to teach it to say,
'Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!'"
If, while you are at the "Pirate's Den" you care to climb a rickety, but
enchanted staircase outside the old building (it's pre-Revolutionary, you
know) you will come to the "Aladdin Shop"--where coffee and Oriental
sweets are specialties.
Pages:
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247