"Couldn't it be managed some way, Daddy?" he begged.
"Where's your allowance?" Charles stretched lazily, one hand enclosing Marian's slippered feet, dancing them slowly up and down.
"It's all in hock, for three weeks." Spencer was dolorous. "For Christmas presents, and they're all over."
"It's where?" Catherine laughed, and Spencer spun around, hope smoothing some of his puckers.
"Hock. That's what Tom says. But he says when he needs more money he asks his mother and she tells his father and he gets it."
"And who is Tom?" Charles stood up. Swinging Marian to her feet. "Let's have dinner."
It was Tom Wilcox on the floor below. Spencer had spent the afternoon there; his story came out in excited fragments. He had helped set up a radio apparatus, and he wanted one, to rig up on his bed, like Tom's. Then he could wake up in the night and listen to a concert, or a man telling about the weather.
"He lent me a book about it, Mother." He poised his fork in mid-air, and down splashed his bit of mashed potato.
"Watch what you are doing, sir," said Charles.
Spencer flushed, but hurried on, "And I know I could set one up alone, and it's wonderful, Mother, you can listen to things thousands of miles away, an'----"
"If Spencer has one, I want one on my bed, too," declared Marian, with a demure, sidewise glance at her father. "Couldn't I have one, Daddy?"
"Spencer hasn't one yet." Charles teased him.
"How much do they cost?" asked Catherine, gently. Marian's glance bothered her. The child couldn't--how could she?--feel that thicket which had sprung up this last week, enough to range herself deliberately with her father.
"Well, quite a lot of dollars. Four or five or mebbe six." Spencer was doubtful. "But they last forever, Tom says, an'----"
Spencer caught the tantalizing undertone in his father's voice.
"Careful, Spencer." Catherine's eyes steadied him; poor kid! She knew that irritating helplessness. "I'm sure it is interesting."
Mrs. O'Lay heaved herself around the table. "That roast ain't so good as it might be," she observed confidentially to Catherine. "Butchers is snides, that's all."
"It was all right." Catherine ignored Charles's lifted eyebrows. The salad did look a little messy.
"Can't you talk about something else for a while, Spencer?" Charles spoke up curtly.