"Did I? How did that happen?"
"You were finking of fings and got in my way."
"Was that it?"
"Vat's what my papa says, when I do it. He says I ought to look where I am going." The boy's tone was severe.
There was a pause, while Mac swung his hoop against a post. On the rebound, it struck the stranger a sharp blow just under and back of the knees. He turned and glared at the child.
"I feel just as if I should like to say confound it," Mac drawled, twisting his pink lips with relish of the forbidden word.
"So should I. Suppose we do. But how old are you?"
"'Most four."
"But little boys like you shouldn't say such words."
"My papa does; I heard him. My mamma puts soap in my mouf, when I do it," he added, with an artless frankness which appeared to be characteristic of him. Then abruptly he changed the subject. "Ve cook has gone, and mamma made such a funny pudding, last night," he announced. "It stuck and broke ve dish to get it out. Good-bye. Vis is where I live." And he clattered up the steps and vanished, hoop and all, through the front doorway, leaving the stranger to marvel at the precocity of western children and at the complexity of their vocabularies.