“Doodles dumpy!” The boy’s shoulders shook again. “Why, if there was nothin’ left in the whole world but just barbers’ poles, Doodles ’u’d sure make friends with the stripes. And he’d have the best time ever—bet you he would!” Blue’s hard little face grew suddenly tender, as he thought of the brother whose life was all pain and all joy.
The auction was over. The crowd poured out into the noisy street. Here and there a bird-cage told that a lame canary, a blind bobolink, or some other “damaged” fluff of feathers had changed owners.
One of the purchasers, a small, hatless girl, clad in scowls and a lace-collared coat, halted when she saw Blue, and began recklessly to swing her cage.
“Here, you Mame Sweeney!” the boy cried, seizing the child’s arm; “don’t yer see you’re scarin’ that bird ’most to death?”
“Le’ go!” she snapped. “’T ain’t yours!” She wrenched herself free, and defiantly thrashed the cage about her knees.
“Stop it!” The girl found her hand gripped in a vise of muscles.
“Le’ me be!” she screamed. “Don’t care if I do scare him! Horrid old thing!”
A little group of newsboys circled about them, eager for a closer view of the cause of the wrangle.
The ragged gray bird, panting on the floor of his prison, did not invite favor. There was a subdued chorus of grunts and ejaculations. Then disapproval burst into bantering speech.
“Ain’t he a dood!”—“Mame, wha’ ’d yer pay fer th’ beaut?”—“Whin ’ll he give a concert?”—“Sure, if he sings like he looks, he’ll bate th’ show!”