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THE GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION
So O'Malley asked for a nutcracker in his Union City, New Jersey,
French, and bottles of things, and a shaker and a bowl of ice, and the
maitre-d'hotel had it fetched with a suspicious but he'll-pay-beaucoup–
for-his-fun gleam in his agate eyes, and O'Malley mixed. He first
cracked 4 cherry pits with that darned nutcracker and dropped them
in a cocktail glass. Then he put rYz jiggers of
k_irsch,
r pony of cherry
brandy, r tsp of maraschino, into the shaker, and shook it with the
ice. Then he poured it onto the broken pits, stirred it for a second to
let the aromatic bitter odour and taste penetrate the drink, then
handed it to me. And it was good.
"T-hat, Pal,"-O'Malley was the soul of companionship for a chauf–
feur-companion, we might state--"is a swell drink, see? That drink
has what it takes-irpagination, see? That's it, imagination. No drink
is worth a damn without imagination.
It
doesn't take any imagination
to just say 'Scotchansoda,' now does it? It's good enough to give
Celeste's old man, and if it's good enough for that it's plenty good
enough for a name. It must be garnished with
2
red cherries, Eh?
2;
sure! ... Let's name it the Virgin's Prayer. Eh? What do you think,
Esle?" Esle was our Miss Tiller
du jour.
Esle was just eighteen, with
curly brown hair and brown eyes, and breakfast ankles. She was very
English, very sane, very passionate. She looked at him calmly. She
sipped the drink.
"I don't trust the Irish, O'Malley," she said evenly; "or their names."
· · .
"Garfon,
scotchansoda," she said to the hovering waiter.
Now of course we don't expect that when our most dutiful readers
are faced with a bowl of cherries they will all have nutcrackers within
ordering distance. Or Tiller girls. But if they have, and the spirit of
adventure is not dead, they may try this pungent drink. Try an
O'Malley Virgin's Prayer. It really is a sound cocktail, and worthy to
be known among all men.
VANILLA PUNCH, another RECEIPT from the PLANTATION FILES
of ONE CLYMER BROOKE, MENTIONED ELSEWHERE in this WoRK
Brooke was the one who fell in love with Tahiti, and left the round-
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