"But precious, what with coal so high!"
When the priest had settled himself in the morris chair, Johnnie came to lean close to this new friend who was both an understanding and a sympathetic soul. "Want t' hear a secret?" he half whispered.
Father Pat was as mysterious as possible. "Shure, and 'tis me business t' hear secrets," he whispered back. "And what's more, I never tell!"
"Well," confided Johnnie, "there's a lot o' my friends—Jim Hawkins, and Galahad, and Uncas, and, oh, dozens o' others—all just ready t' come in!"
"No-o-o-o!"
"Honest!"
"Galahad, too!—him with the grand scarlet robe, and the chain mail t' the knees, and the locks as bright as yer own! Well, I'm that glad t' hear it! and that excited!"
Breathing a warning, Johnnie sped to the sink, rapped once, then twice, then once again. A short wait, followed by soft pad-pads on the floor overhead. Next down into sight at the window came the basket, filled to the top with books.
At sight of the basket, for some reason Father Pat suddenly seemed anxious; and as Johnnie drew it to the window sill, the priest pried himself up out of the big chair. "Shure, 'tis divvlement!" he pronounced. "Yet still 'tis grand! Only keep 'em all right there, lad dear, and I'll come over t' be introduced."
Proudly and impressively Johnnie proffered first his Aladdin. Nodding delightedly, the Father took it. "Yes, 'tis the very same Aladdin!" he declared. "Ye know, I was afraid maybe the Aladdin I know and this one were two diff'rent gentlemen. But, no!—Oh, in the beginnin' weren't ye afraid, little reader dear, that this friend o' ours would end up wrong? and be lazy and disobedient t' the last, gaddin' the streets when he ought t' be helpin' his mamma?"