"I only wanted to know if you was too old to play with me," he said, looking at me reproachfully out of his great violet eyes.
"I will certainly play with you if you are a good boy," I replied, in a mollified voice.
"Oh, I'm so glad!" he exclaimed, dancing by my side with pleasure; "'cause I have no one to play with me. Granny is too old, and Briggs says when she runs it makes her legs ache as if they will break."
"I will run a little sometimes, but I can't promise to do much," I said cautiously.
"Oh, you needn't always run," he said, encouragingly. "There is one or two games where you needn't hardly move. Just a little tiny bit, you know. Will you play at trains?"
"What is it?"
"Oh, such a nice game! and you needn't run unless you like. I'll be the train and the engine, and you can be the guard and the steam-engine whistle. Then you need only walk about at the station and take the tickets, and just scream high up in your head like this" (and Chris gave vent to a loud and piercing scream—so unexpectedly loud and piercing that I almost started). "That's like the steam-engine goes, you know," he explained.
"I couldn't do that," I said with decision, when I had recovered from the shock.
"Then p'r'aps you'd like to play at lame horses," he suggested. "You needn't scream then, only jog up and down as if you'd got a stone in your foot. I'll be the coachman, but I won't make you run fast, 'cause it would be very cruel of me if you had a stone in your foot; wouldn't it?" he continued, virtuously.
"Very," I agreed, as we turned into the lodge-gates of Skeffington, and pursued our way up the drive.