“I’ll bet you a treat you can’t name one word longer than smiles,” returned Smart, with great earnestness.
“Hi’ll ’ave to go you. Hit’s dead heasy. Hi’ll give you the first word Hi think of. Hit’s transubstantiation. ’Ow is that?”
“It isn’t a patch,” asserted Smart. “Look at the short distance between the first and last letters in that word.”
“Hey? Well, look at the shorter distance between the first hand last letters hin your word. Hi ’ave got you!”
“Not on your tintype! There is a mile between the first and last letters in smiles.”
Billy gasped for breath and grew so excited that there was danger of his again attracting the attention of the droning professor.
“A mile?” he gasped. “You hare a blooming hidiot! ’Ow do you make that hout?”
“It’s easy,” assured Smart. “If you don’t believe it, just knock off the first and last letters of smiles and spell what is left. I’m sure you will find it a mile.”
Billy frowned, glared, wrote “smiles” on the margin of a leaf in the book he carried, drew a line after the first “s” and before the last “s,” and found that there really and truly was a “mile” between those two letters, whereupon he had convulsions and Professor Gooch paused and stared at him in wondering amazement.
“Woo! woo! woof!” came in a series of explosive grunts from Bradley, who was doing his best to “hold in.”