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CHAPTER XXIII.

AFTER the first start of rueful astonishment, the indignation of the just fired Lucy's eyes.

She scolded him well. “Was this his return for all her late kindness?”

She hinted broadly at the viper of Aesop, and indicated more faintly an animal that, when one bestows the choicest favors on it, turns and rends one. Then, becoming suddenly just to the brute creation, she said: “No, it is only your abominable sex that would behave so perversely, so ungratefully.”

“Don't understand,” drawled Kenealy, “I thought you would laike it.”

“Well, you see, I don't laike it.”

“You seemed to be getting rather spooney on me.”

“Spooney! what is that? one of your mess-room terms, I suppose.”

“Yaas; so I thought you waunted me to pawp.”