"That? That's a sauce-box." And he smiled.
"Oh!—What's it full of, please?"
"Full of mouths,"—cheerily.
It was her turn to smile. She smiled into the sauce-box. At its center was a queer object, very like a short length of dried apple-peeling.
"I s'pose that's part of a mouth?" she ventured.
He picked up the object and balanced it across his thumb. "You've guessed it!" he declared. "And it's a fine thing to carry around with one. You see, it's a stiff upper lip." He tossed it back.
"My!" She took a deep breath. "Once I asked and asked about a stiff upper lip."
He went on with his polishing. "Should think you'd be more interested in these," he observed, giving a nod of the ragged hat toward a shallow dish at his elbow. "Little girls generally are."
She looked, and saw that the dish was heaped high with what seemed to be white peanuts—peanuts that tapered to a point at one end. She puckered her brows over them.
"Can't guess?" said he. "Then you didn't drink enough of that soda-water. Well, ever hear of a sweet tooth?"