"Thrashed! Give us good strong Saxon for once, Flossy!"
Flossy was of the ambitious, correct, and sentimental order. She had lovely light curls, and soft white hands when she did not have to work too hard, which she never did of her own free will. She thought it dreadful to be so poor, and aspired to a rather aristocratic ladyhood.
"I am sorry you were not among them," she replied indignantly. "You're a hard-hearted, cruel boy!"
"When the thrashings went round? You're a c-r-u-e-l girl!" with a prodigious length of accent. "Why, I get plenty of 'em at school."
"'Trot, trot, trot. There was an old woman'—what are you laughing at, Joe?" and Hal turned red in the face.
"I've just made a brilliant discovery. O my poor buttons! remember Flossy's hard labor and many troubles, and do not bust! Why, we're the very children!"
At this, Joe gave a sudden lurch: you saw his head, and then you saw his heels, and the patch on the knee of his trousers, ripped partly off by an unlucky nail, flapped in the breeze; and he was seated on the window-sill right side up with care, drumming both bare heels into the broken wall. He gave a prolonged whistle of satisfaction, made big eyes at Dot, and then said again,—
"Yes, we are the very children!"
"What children? Joe, you are the noisiest boy in Christendom!"