“I’ll go straight down there, and get the bird!”
“She won’t let you have it!” wailed Doodles. “She said so!”
“Just a bluff, old feller! S’pose I’m goin’ to let Marne Sweeney down me? Not much!”
“If I’d only been—been like you!” mourned the child. “And Caruso won’t know why I didn’t jump up and run after him! I guess his heart is ’most broke, thinkin’ I don’t care.”
“No, ’t ain’t,” declared Blue. “Anyway you can tell him all about it when he comes—”
Doodles was gasping in another agonizing spasm, and the elder boy sprang to his side with words of courage and cheer.
Presently the pain passed, and the brave little sufferer again smiled.
“That one was pretty hard,” he said weakly, as his brother brought a second dose of the soothing medicine.
“Guess this’ll squelch it. Don’t b’lieve it’ll come again.” Blue set down the empty glass, and looked at the clock. In ten minutes the evening papers would be due; he ought to go after the bird at once; but how could he leave Doodles? He thought fast.
“Should you mind my going now, kiddie, if Granny will come up and stay with you? I’ve got to deliver my papers, you know, and I want to make sure of Caruso first.”