“Well, gran’pa,” said he, “ain’t you goin’ to thank me for them generous gifts I been lavishin’ so freehanded and kind on you?”
“Certainly,” agreed Dad. “Much obliged, my friend. Only you mistook the location of my mouth. It’s in front here, not at the back of my neck, as you seem to have made the mistake of thinking.”
Some one tittered at this very mild pleasantry.
The titter nettled the bargee. He desired a monopoly of laughs, and through vexation his merrymaking at once assumed a more caustic tone.
“Kind of a smart Abe, ain’t ye?” he queried. “Guess that kind o’ talk passes for funny back in the Old Men’s Home, don’t it? Or did they dig you up out of somebody’s fam’ly vault?”
“Aw, drop it, Cy!” expostulated a softer-hearted recruit across the aisle.
“That’s right,” assented the bargee. “He may be somebody’s great-great-granddaddy. Gran’ma starved him and larruped him with a broom-handle back home, so he run away to get a square feed at Uncle Sammy’s expense. Ain’t that the way of it, gran’pa?”
“Sonny,” replied Dad, still smiling and in perfect good nature, “I ran away because somebody stole my comic almanac, and I couldn’t get on without it. I missed it a lot—till I met you.”
The titter rose again, this time swelled by several voices. The bargee reddened as he sought to digest the dubious repartee.
Nevertheless, he essayed to answer the none too subtle gibe in like vein.