do they--er--take them in to dinner here?'

'Sure,' answered Mr. Fuessli. 'What else can they do with them?'

'They look a little tired--the children, I mean.'

'Oh, it's just the drive. Kids love it, anyway. Besides, you can't leave 'em at home without a sitter, and you can't always get a sitter, especially on Sundays.'

And true enough, when at last their turn came for a table Charles observed that the dining-room was quite overpopulated with children-- some, like Louise, young enough to occupy high chairs supplied by the restaurant.

'So they ENCOURAGE them to come here?' Charles mused, still grappling with his private astonishment.

'Oh, not by themselves--only with grown-ups,' Mr. Fuessli replied. 'Gosh, no--think of what this place would be like if they let the kids come in alone!'

Charles thought of it, and found the speculation indeed appalling. He noted meanwhile that there was even a special children's dinner at half-price--which Gerald and Louise both ate with relish. The sea-food, incidentally, proved to be excellent, and the Californian wine that Mr. Fuessli ordered was equal to some Charles had tasted from far more familiar bottles.

Over coffee, which they drank in a hurry because the line in the lobby was still long, Charles was anxious to dispel any impression that he had not thoroughly enjoyed himself. 'You mustn't think I don't appreciate your taking Gerald with you like this. It's just that--well, I suppose one gets used to old-fashioned ideas in England--I mean, that children have their meals in the nursery and go to bed soon afterwards . . . and besides, of course, we don't have places like this, even in peacetime.'

'Maybe you would have,' said Mr. Fuessli, 'if there was a demand for them.' (He had always found this principle valid in the hardware business.)

'That's very possible,' Charles agreed. 'And perhaps the truth is that some of us in England are TOO old-fashioned . . . for instance, I was twenty-one before my own father ever took me out to dinner.'

The Fuesslis looked incredulous.

Charles smiled. 'Of course that was overdoing it. I'll initiate Gerald much earlier.'

'INITIATE him?' Mrs. Fuessli echoed.

'In a sort of way. After all, there's a good deal of ritual in it-- how to explore a French menu, the wines that go best with various foods, clothes to wear on different occasions, what people to tip and how much--quite a lot to learn.'

'Don't you think one can pick up things like that without exactly learning them?' asked Mr. Fuessli.

'Better to learn them, then you don't pick them up wrong.' Charles did not intend to be either didactic or crushing, but he thought he might have sounded a little of both and it disconcerted him.

Mrs. Fuessli twinkled. 'And when do you think Gerry will be ready to start learning?'

'Oh, I'd say when he's at Cambridge--maybe eighteen or nineteen.' Charles added, lest he should seem to be taking the whole thing far too seriously: 'I'm already looking forward to it--a grand excuse to give myself what Lord Curzon once called a beano.'

They did not understand the allusion, so he had to explain that 'beano' was a sound if somewhat proletarian English word meaning 'a good time' (derived from 'beanfeast'), but that Lord Curzon, a man of unproletarian perspectives, had assumed from its appearance that the word was Italian, and had therefore pronounced it 'bay-ah-no'. Charles enjoyed dissecting the joke (for it had always had for him a flavour incommunicable perhaps to those who had not known Lord Curzon professionally); he hoped it might at least convince the Fuesslis that he had a sense of humour. But they merely smiled in a rather vague way, and after a pause Mrs. Fuessli returned to the subject of Gerald's 'initiation'.

'And where will you go when you first take him to dinner?' she asked.