The girl frowned on the teasing lads.
“How could I see him in all that jam!” she pouted. “The man said he was swell, and could sing like everything. Anyhow, I got him for seventeen cents!”
“Swell!” Blue let go a whistle. Yet he gazed pityingly at the poor, draggled thing in the cage.
“You could n’t to know nothin’ ’bout him the while he’s got fraids,” apologized Joseph Sitnitsky. “He be a awful stylish kind.” Joseph’s uncle was half-proprietor of the bird shop.
As if encouraged by this friendly comment, the bird tentatively cast an eye upward, and then hopped to his perch. But if he had hoped by this act to win kindlier words, the effort failed. Scorn swept the circle. The Bargain was disgracefully dirty, his left wing hung limp at his side, his bill was nicked, and his tail was reduced to three ragged feathers.
“Aw, he’s worser’n a muddy sparrer! Out him, Marne, an’ done with it!”
“You could to have nice feelings over him, und maybe sometime he sings,” mildly remonstrated the loyal nephew of Abraham Sitnitsky.
But nobody heeded the plaintive voice, and the girl, chagrined at the loss of her money and exasperated by the jeers of the boys, seemed about to follow Pete’s dismal advice, when Blue Stickney interposed.
“I’ll give yer a quarter for him!”
Staying her reckless hand, Mame stared.