"That was nice of him!" asserted Mr. Perkins, as he noted the date on the paper. "But what about school?"
"Oh, gee! I forgot all about Mister Maloney!" regretted Johnnie. He filled in the gap promptly, including night school, and the matter of his not having suitable clothes. "But when Mister Maloney heard how I can read," he concluded, "he seen I didn't need t' go t' school the way other kids do. Or anyhow"—remarking a curious light in those coffee-colored eyes—"that's what Big Tom says. And I can write good. Watch me, Mister Perkins! I'll write for you on the plaster—big words, too!"
"Oh, I'm sure you write well," Mr. Perkins agreed. "So I'd rather you'd talk. Tell me this: what do you eat?"
Johnnie answered, and as correctly as possible, being careful all the while not to give so much as a hint of the shameful truth that he, himself, did most of the cooking. As he talked, he kept wishing that the conversation would swing round to scouts and uniforms. He even tried to swing it himself. "Mrs. Kukor says that scouts make picnics," he said, "and have awful good things t' eat."
But Mr. Perkins passed that over, hint and all. He wanted to know whether or not Johnnie got plenty of milk.
"Oh, the milk we buy is all for Grandpa," Johnnie protested. "A big kid like me——"
Mr. Perkins interrupted. "I take a quart a day," he said quietly, "and I'm a bigger kid than you are; I'm twenty-one. Milk's got everything in it that a man needs from one end of his life to the other. Don't forget that."
"No, sir,"—fixing upon his visitor a look that admitted he was wrong. "I wish I could drink a lot of milk," he added regretfully.
"And what about exercise? and baths? Out-door exercise, I mean," said Mr. Perkins.
"I hang out o' the window 'most ev'ry mornin' that I don't go after boxes," answered Johnnie, so glad that he could give a satisfactory account of the matter of fresh air. "And bathin', well, I bathed ev'ry day when I was at my Aunt Sophie's, but down here——"