'Yes. To fetch my fifty pfennings.'
We said no more. I couldn't, because I was so breathlessly pulling, and Vicki marched by my side in indignant silence, with a jealous eye divided between the parcels and the boy. He, unencumbered, thrust his hands into his pockets and beguiled the way by shrilly whistling.
At each winding of the road when Vicki and I changed places he renewed his offer to fulfil his first bargain; but we, more and more angry as we grew hotter and hotter, refused with an ever increasing wrath.
'Come, come,' said he, when a very steep bit had forced me to pause and struggle for breath.
'Come, come—' and he imitated my earlier manner—'it is quite easy.'
I looked at him with what of majesty I could, and answered not a word.
At Vicki's gate he was still with us. 'I will see you safely home,' Vicki said to me when we got there.
'This where you live?' inquired the boy, peeping through the bars of the gate with cheerful interest. 'Nice little house.'
We were silent.
'I will see her home,' he said to Vicki, 'if you don't want to. But she can surely take care of herself, a great girl like that?'