I can’t write lullaby the way he stuttered it, and if I could I wouldn’t. It would waste almost as much paper as he did with his figuring. He put more than seven hunderd “l’s” into it.
“Huh!” says I, not much pleased about it, and who would be, I’d like to know?
“Say, Plunk,” says Mark, “I t-t-tell you what I’ll do. I’ll let you off this time. It’ll teach you not to bet. Bettin’s a m-m-mighty bad habit for a young f-f-feller like you.”
“An old man like you,” says I, sarcastic as vinegar, “is all right, though.”
“Sure,” says he, with a grin, “but I’ll let you off.”
“Would you ’a’ done what you agreed to if you lost the bet?”
“Yes,” says he.
“Then,” says I, “so will I. When I say I’ll do a thing, I’ll do it.”
He looked at me for a minute and then he just sort of touched me on the shoulder and says: “I might ’a’ knowed you’d say that. I’ve b-b-been in enough things with you to know you wasn’t a q-q-quitter. When I see you hikin’ around with that doll-cab to-night, hanged if I won’t be proud I know you.”
Yes, sir, he said that to me, and he said it like he meant it. Somehow after that I didn’t care who laughed at me when I was making an idiot of myself. I felt good. And right there I made up my mind to one thing: It’s a heap better to look like an idiot on account of keeping your word than it would be to look like a college perfessor by breaking it.