“You were seven and I was five,” Virginia smiled, as she extended her hand.
“I remember,” Kerlerac answered. “You gave me a chocolate rat with a rubber tail. I could hold the tail and bounce the rat, or I could lay the rat down and watch it wiggle its tail very lifelike. I ate that rat, rubber-tail and all.”
“You gave me a rabbit-foot in a green-plush box,” Virginia laughed. “I did not eat the foot or the box. I have them both yet.”
“I have something that you did not give me,” Kerlerac said earnestly. “I stole it from you. I carried it through three battles across the sea. It is your picture as you were then.”
“Have I changed since then?” the girl asked, because she did not know what else to say.
“Yes. The photograph I have of you shows a little spitfire girl astride of a wabble-wheeled velocipede.”
“Oh—” that young lady gasped.
VIII
THE LOST FOOT
A moving-picture of the performances of Mustard Prophet when he discovered the loss of his rabbit-foot would be a valuable contribution to the silent drama. Alone in that big plantation-house, with no one to talk to, he spluttered with language like an erupting volcano, and cut as many capers as a cat having a fit.