“Not ALWAYS.”
He nodded his head rapidly. Then added slowly, and with great elaboration, “Et mo'nins, et affernoons, et nights, 'nd mo'nins adain. 'N et becker” (i. e., breakfast).
There was no doubt it was the truth. Those eyes did not seem to be in the habit of lying. After all, the medicine could not hurt him. His nurse was at a little distance gazing absently at the sea. I sat down on a bench, and dropped a few of the pellets into his palm. He ate them seriously, and then turned around and backed—after the well-known appealing fashion of childhood—against my knees. I understood the movement—although it was unlike my idea of Johnnyboy. However, I raised him to my lap—with the sensation of lifting a dozen lace-edged handkerchiefs, and with very little more effort—where he sat silently for a moment, with his sandals crossed pensively before him.
“Wouldn't you like to go and play with those children?” I asked, pointing to a group of noisy sand levelers not far away.
“No!” After a pause, “You wouldn't neither.”
“Why?”
“Hediks.”
“But,” I said, “perhaps if you went and played with them and ran up and down as they do, you wouldn't have headache.”
Johnnyboy did not answer for a moment; then there was a perceptible gentle movement of his small frame. I confess I felt brutally like Belcher. He was getting down.
Once down he faced me, lifted his frank eyes, said, “Do way and play den,” smoothed down his smuggler frock, and rejoined his nurse.