"I never did like cinnamon, anyhow," put in Weary, cheerfully.
"I did not mention cinnamon. I said—"
"Say, yuh look out uh sight with your hair fixed that way. I wish you'd wear it like that all the time," he observed irrelevantly, looking up at her with his sunniest smile.
"I wish to goodness I were really out of sight," snapped the schoolma'am. "You make me exceedingly weary."
"Mrs. Weary," corrected he, complacently. "That's what I'm sure aiming at."
"You aim wide of the mark, then," she retorted valiantly, though confusion waved a red flag in either cheek.
"Oh, I don't know. A minute ago you were roasting me because my aim was too good," he contended mildly, glancing involuntarily toward the gopher stretched upon its little, yellow back, its four small feet turned pitifully up to the blue.
"If you had an atom of decency you'd be ashamed to mention that tribute to your diabolical marksmanship."
"Oh, mamma!" ejaculated Weary under his breath, and began to make himself a smoke. His guardian angel was exhorting him to silence, but it preached, as usual, to unsentient ears.
"I never mentioned all those things," he denied meekly. "It's you that keeps on mentioning. I wish yuh wouldn't. I like to hear you talk, all right, and flop all those big words easy as roping a calf; but I wish you'd let me choose your subject for yuh. I could easy name one where you could use words just as high and wide and handsome, and a heap more pleasant than the brand you've got corralled. Try admiration and felicitation and exhilarating, ecstatic osculation—" He stopped to run the edge of paper along his tongue, and perhaps it was as well he did; there was no need of making her any angrier. Miss Satterly hated to feel that she was worsted, and it was quite clear that Weary had all along been "guying" her.