"Flossy, my darling, you are a poet sure; only poetry, like an alligator, must have feet, or it will lose its reputation. Here's your 'lasses, Granny; and what do you think? Something has actually happened to me! Oh, my! do guess quick!"
"You've been taken with the 'lirium"—and there Charlie paused, having been wrecked on a big word.
"Delirium tremenjous. Remember to say it right hereafter, Charlie."
Charlie looked very uncertain.
"Maybe it's the small-pox," said Kit, glancing up in amazement.
"Good for you!" and Joe applauded with two rather blue thumb-nails. "But it's a fact. Guess, Granny. I'm on the high road to fortune. Hooray!"
With that, Joe executed his usual double-shuffle, and a revolution on his axis hardly laid down in the planetary system. He would have said that it was because he was not a heavenly body.
"O Joe, if you were like any other boy!"
"Jim Fisher, for instance,—red-headed, squint-eyed, and freckled."
"He can't help it," said Hal mildly. "He is real nice too."