Gifford Barrett shook the water from his eyes and rubbed his right arm a little anxiously, as he staggered to his feet again. Cicely had fled to Allyn's side, and the young man nodded curtly to her as he stalked back to the shore. At the water's edge, he was greeted with a voice which sounded strangely familiar to his ears.
"How do you do? Vat was ve time you got boiled; wasn't it?"
No childish voice ever fell unheeded on Gifford Barrett's ears. The stoutest spot in his mental armor yielded to the touch of small fingers, and some of his best comradeships had been with tiny boys and girls. Now, in an instant, all his sense of injured dignity fell away from him, and the watchers under the awnings wondered at the sudden kindliness in his face, as he grasped Mac's pudgy fist.
"Why, Mac, who ever dreamed of seeing you here, old man!"
"I live here now," Mac said gravely; "me and my mamma and everybody, only papa."
"I thought you lived in Helena."
"Not now. We like it better here; it's so funny to sit in ve sand and build pies. Can you build pies?"
"Yes, and forts."
Mac fell to prancing delightedly, quite regardless of the havoc his small shoes were creating among the bare toes of his companion.
"Oh, can you? Truly, no joking? Make me one now."