“Why, that I should like to have their names if they have such an article belonging to ‘em!”
Toto raised his cap and scratched his head, as if to stimulate his brains, and as he brushed up his thick head of dirty yellow hair, he eyed Andre cunningly.
“And suppose I know the blokes’ names and tells ‘em out to you, what will you stand?” asked he.
“Ten sous.”
The delightful youth puffed out his cheeks, then expelled the pent-up wind by a sudden slap, as a mark of his disgust at the meanness of the offer.
“Pull up your braces, my lord,” said he sarcastically, “or you’ll be losing the contents of your breeches pockets. Ten sous, indeed! Perhaps you’d like me to lend ‘em to yer?”
Andre smiled pleasantly.
“Did you think, my little man, that I was going to offer you twenty thousand shiners?” asked he.
“Won again!” cried Toto; “I laid myself a new hat that you weren’t a fool, and I have collared the stakes.”
“Why do you think I am not a fool?”