The smile which habitually shone there quickly vanished as the boy stepped quietly to his companion's side, and took his arm without a word.
“In course you didn't speak, Tommy,” said Johnson, deprecatingly. “You ain't a boy to go for to play an ole soaker like me. That's wot I like you for. Thet's wot I seed in you from the first. I sez, 'Thet 'ere boy ain't goin' to play you, Johnson! You can go your whole pile on him, when you can't trust even a bar-keep.' Thet's wot I said. Eh?”
This time Tommy prudently took no notice of the interrogation, and Johnson went on: “Ef I was to ask you another question, you wouldn't go to play me neither,—would you, Tommy?”
“No,” said the boy.
“Ef I was to ask you,” continued Johnson, without heeding the reply, but with a growing anxiety of eye and a nervous twitching of his lips,—“ef I was to ask you, fur instance, ef that was a jackass rabbit thet jest passed,—eh?—you'd say it was or was not, ez the case may be. You wouldn't play the ole man on thet?”
“No,” said Tommy, quietly, “it WAS a jackass rabbit.”
“Ef I was to ask you,” continued Johnson, “ef it wore, say, fur instance, a green hat with yaller ribbons, you wouldn't play me, and say it did, onless,”—he added, with intensified cunning,—“onless it DID?”
“No,” said Tommy, “of course I wouldn't; but then, you see, IT DID.”
“It did?”
“It did!” repeated Tommy, stoutly; “a green hat with yellow ribbons—and—and—a red rosette.”