"Very well," replied Rita, laughing heartily. "I'll stake my money on Billy Little. But I was saying, the other day I—"
"I'll put mine on Uncle Joe," cried Dic. "Billy Little is a 'still Bill' compared with him."
Rita was provoked, and I think with good reason; but after a pause she concluded to try once more.
"The other day I wanted a quill for a pen, and when I tried to catch a goose I thought their noise would alarm the whole settlement."
"Geese awakened Rome," said Dic. "If they should awaken Blue River, it, also, might become famous. The geese episode is the best known fact concerning the Eternal City—unless perhaps it is her howling."
"Rome had a right to howl," said Rita, anxious to show that she remembered his teaching. "She was founded by the children of a wolf."
Dic was pleased and laughingly replied: "That ponderous historical epigram is good enough to have come from Billy Little himself. When you learn a fact, it immediately grows luminous."
The girl looked quickly up to satisfy herself that he was in earnest. Being satisfied, she moved an inch or two nearer him on the log, and began again:—
"I wanted to catch the goose—" but she stopped and concluded to try the Billy Little road. "Dear old Billy Little," she said, "isn't he good? The other day he said he'd trust me for the whole store, if I wanted to buy it. I had no money and I wanted to buy—"
"Why should he not trust you for all you would buy?" asked Dic. "He knows he would get his money."