‘Say after me, “I humbly apologise for being a cad,”’ said Micky, relentlessly.
‘I humbly Polly’s eyes——’ gasped Diamond Jubilee, who would have said anything required of him at that moment. ‘Ow! Get off, can’t you?’
‘Say “for being a cad,”’ persisted Micky, ‘then I’ll get off.’
‘Micky, do get off,’ pleaded Emmeline, who was beginning to be really unhappy.
‘For being a cad,’ repeated Micky, firmly.
‘For being a cad,’ groaned Diamond Jubilee; on which Micky sprang up with the suddenness of a triumphant Jack-in-the-box.
‘Shake hands,’ commanded Micky, stretching out his paw as Diamond Jubilee rose from the ground slowly and rather sulkily. For a moment the street-arab seemed to hesitate. Then, sheepish but not unfriendly, he put his very grimy little hands into Micky’s.
‘That’s the sporting way to end a fight,’ explained Micky; ‘and now Emmeline and I will have to go home to dinner or we’ll be late, and though Aunt Grace went to London this morning, so that there isn’t her to think of, there’ll be a row with Jane, which is much worse.’
‘Yes, and we had better give you your own dinner, as we have met you,’ said Emmeline, ‘here it is—chocolate and monkey-nuts. They are quite the best foods there are,’ she added hastily; ‘anyone who eats them could do perfectly well without anything else.’
In spite of what she had said to Micky, a sneaking doubt as to whether Diamond Jubilee would approve of being the person to try the experiment, made Emmeline keep to general terms. There would be time enough to break to him that chocolate and monkey-nuts were to form his sole and lasting diet when he had already become fat and flourishing on them.