"You kin always git a piece of bread," said Nance.
"You bet you can't!" said Dan with conviction. "I ain't had nothin' to eat myself since yisterday noon."
"Yer maw didn't come in last night?"
"I 'spec' she went on a visit somewhere," said Dan, whose lips trembled slightly despite the stump of a cigarette that he manfully held between them.
"Couldn't you git in a window?"
"Nope; the shutters was shut. Maybe I don't wisht it was December, an' I was fourteen!"
"Sammy Smelts works an' he ain't no older'n me," said Nance. "You kin git a fake certificate fer a quarter."
Dan smiled bitterly.
"Where'm I goin' to git the quarter? They won't let me sell things on the street, or shoot craps, or work. Gee, I wisht I was rich as that Clarke boy. Ike Lavinski says he buys a quarter's worth of candy at a time! He's in Ike's room at school."
"He wasn't there yesterday," said Nance. "Uncle Jed seen him with another boy, goin' out the railroad track."