"You fire at him, and I'll make a grab at his candy and divvy with you afterward."
"Just's you say."
Darky John was a good-tempered colored man who kept a candy store.
The boys were always playing him some trick or another, and, indeed, they made his life a misery and a burden to him.
As usual, Soft Tommy did not see the drift of his friend's proposal.
He ran the risk of getting all the blows, and Charley all the candy.
A few minutes' walk brought them to Darky John's. He was standing behind his counter, and was suddenly roused from the contemplation of a batch of red and blue-colored sugar pigs by the forcible contact of a snowball with his nose.
"Ki!" he said, "dat's too rough for dis chile to stand. Who fire dat ball?"
"Give him a couple more, and make him come out after you," whispered Charley.
Tommy threw two more balls, one of which raised a commotion among the bottles on a shelf, the other broke on John's ear, and its flaky particles streamed down his neck.