“I spent it for ink,” said Artie, solemnly. “If I’m going to write a book, I have to write it in ink, don’t I?”
Artie Marley was much given to reading books, and now his modest desire was to write one.
“I don’t think you need a whole bottle of ink to write a book with,” said Fred, judiciously. “You could have borrowed your mother’s ink and saved the ten cents.”
Artie gazed at him with respect. He had had the same thought himself, he declared.
“But when I took the bottle from Mother’s desk, I spilled most of it on the stairs,” he confided. “And so I had to take half of the new ink I bought to fill her bottle up so she wouldn’t miss it.”
“Well, the next time,” Fred instructed him, “you want to buy something, you pay your dues first. You ought to have some sense of—of—some sense of duty!” he concluded magnificently.
“I paid my dues!” exclaimed Fred’s twin sister, Margy. “Didn’t I, Fred?”
The air with which Margy Williamson said this was too much for Jess. In spite of Polly’s warning tug at her dress she spoke “right out in meeting,” as her grandmother would have said.
“The reason you paid your dues, Margy Williamson,” said Jess, clearly, “is because you borrowed the money from Polly. That’s why she couldn’t pay hers.”
Margy flushed and Fred frowned.