“Now, you’re laughing at me, Mr. Stone! All right just you wait—and Hanlon goes around on a motor-cycle, too!”
“He does! Then we are undone! What a revelation! And, now, Fibs, if you’ll explain to me the significance of Hanlon’s aspiring ambitions and his weird taste for motor-cycles, I’ll be obliged.”
Fibsy was extremely, even absurdly, sensitive to irony. Sometimes it didn’t affect him seriously, and then, again, he would be so hurt and embarrassed by it, that it fairly made him unable to talk.
In this instance, it overcame him utterly, and his funny little freckled face turned red, and his eyes lost their eagerness and showed only chagrin.
“Come, come,” said Stone, regretting his teasing, but determined to help the boy overcome his sensitiveness to it, “brace up, Fibs; you know I meant no harm. Forgive a chap, can’t you—and begin all over again. I know you have something in your noddle—and doubtless, something jolly well worth while.”
“Well—I—oh, wait a minute, Mr. Stone—I’m a fool, but I can’t help it. When you come at me like that, I lose all faith in my notions. For it’s only a notion—and a crazy one at that, and—well, sir, you wait till I’ve worked it up a little further—and if there’s anything to it—I’ll expound. Now, what’s my orders for to-day?”
Fibsy had an obstinate streak in his make-up, and Fleming Stone was too wise to insist on the boy’s “expounding” just then.
Instead, he said, pleasantly: “To-day, Fibs, I want you to make a round of the drug stores. It’s not a hopeful job—indeed, I can’t think it can amount to anything—but have a try at it. You remember, Mr. Hendricks had the earache—”
“I do, indeed! He had it a month ago—and what’s more, he denied it—at first.”
“Yes; well, use your discretion for all it’s worth—but get a line on the doctor that prescribed for him—it was a bad case, you know—and find out what he got to relieve him and where he got it.”