“Can’t you see?” growled the boy addressed. “I’m eating an apple.”
“Dud-does it hu-hurt ye much?” grinned the cheerful lad at the fence. “What do you eat it for if it makes you fur-fur-feel so bad?”
Don’s answer to this bit of persiflage was a still blacker scowl and sullen silence. Danny kicked the fence and whistled, a twinkle in his eyes.
“Say, gimme an apple,” he entreated. “You’ll mum-mum-mum-make yourself sus-sick trying to eat the ho-ho-whole of ’em.”
The boy under the tree picked up an apple and threw it viciously at the sarcastic fellow outside the fence, who caught it with one hand, crying:
“Judgment! Out! Gug-gug-great work!”
Then he gave the apple a wipe on his jacket and took a trial bite out of it, his manner being suspicious till he had tested it, upon which his face betrayed satisfaction and he immediately took a still larger bite.
“Ji-ji-ji-jimminy!” he stuttered, speaking with his mouth full and chewing and talking at the same time. “It’s sus-sus-sweet! I never knew that was a sus-sweet apple tut-tut-tree, and I thought it must be sus-sour or bub-bub-bitter from the way you looked. If I’d known——”
“Better not come round here for apples after dark,” grimly warned Don. “Pat sleeps over the kitchen, and his window looks right out onto this orchard. He’s got a gun loaded with rock-salt, and he’d shoot just as quick as he’d take a drink of water.”
“If that’s the case,” grinned Danny, “judgin’ by the cuc-cuc-color of his nose, there ain’t no great danger that he’ll ever dud-do any sus-sus-sus-shooting. But say, ain’t you coming up to the field for pup-pup-practice?”