This moon upon which he was placidly gazing, because he had nothing else to do, betokened nought to Hedrick: to him it was the moon of any other night, the old moon; certainly no moon of his delight. Withal, it may never be gazed upon so fixedly and so protractedly—no matter how languidly—with entire impunity. That light breeds a bug in the brain. Who can deny how the moon wrought this thing under the hair of unconscious Hedrick, or doubt its responsibility for the thing that happened?
“Little boy!”
It was a very soft, small voice, silky and queer; and at first Hedrick had little suspicion that it could be addressing him: the most rigid self-analysis could have revealed to him no possibility of his fitting so ignominious a description.
“Oh, little boy!”
He looked over his shoulder and saw, standing in the alley behind him, a girl of about his own age. She was daintily dressed and had beautiful hair which was all shining in pale gold.
“Little boy!”
She was smiling up at him, and once more she used that wantonly inaccurate vocative:
“Little boy!”
Hedrick grunted unencouragingly. “Who you callin’ `little boy’?”
For reply she began to climb the fence. It was high, but the young lady was astonishingly agile, and not even to be deterred by several faint wails from tearing and ripping fabrics—casualties which appeared to be entirely beneath her notice. Arriving at the top rather dishevelled, and with irregular pennons here and there flung to the breeze from her attire, she seated herself cosily beside the dumbfounded Hedrick.