"You know I would n't hurt my little cubby-cub for a million pounds."
"Would you for a million millions?"
"Never!"
"For a ship as big as the Tu-te-onic?" Bran adored ships, and could imagine most crimes being committed to acquire one.
"Never, never, jamais!"
"Not if some one came and asked you to give me just a teeny weeny hurt?"
"If some one came to me and said, 'I 'll give you the whole sea full of ships with all the beautiful things in the world in them, if you just crush your little Bran's finger till he howls,' I would say, 'You get out of here, Beel, or I keel you.'"
Bran gave a joyful prance at the familiar quotation from Stephen Crane's story of Mexico Bill, long since transformed by Val into an exciting game, in which he performed the rô1e of Bill, and she and Haidee were two Mexican braves in sombreros and draped blankets. He was just about to propose a full-dress rehearsal of this drama when Val, reading the inspiration in his eye and feeling quite unfit for any such diversion, headed his mind off in another direction.
"If any one came and offered you a million pounds to hurt your mammie, would you do it?"
"No," said Bran, adding darkly, "but I'd ask him where he lived."