They were now standing directly under the window at which the old colonel was sitting. He leaned out.
“Bravo, youngster!” said he, “you are a plucky one—here—drink this on the strength of it.” He had taken up the tumbler and was holding it out of the window toward Little-Boy. The boy looked up, surprised, then whispered something to his older brother, gave him his portfolio to hold, and gripped the big glass in his two little hands.
When he had drunk all he wanted, with one hand he held the glass by its stem, with the other took back the portfolio from his brother, and without asking by your leave, handed the glass over to him.
Chubby-Cheeks then took a long swallow.
“The blessed boy,” muttered the colonel to himself. “I give him my glass, and without further ado he makes his cher frère drink out of it, too.”
But by the face of Little-Boy, who now reached the glass up to the window again, one could see that he had only been doing something which seemed to him quite a matter of course.
“Do you like the bouquet?” asked the old colonel.
“Yes, thanks, very well,” said the boy, who snatched at his cap politely, and went on his way with his brother.
The colonel looked after them until they had turned a corner of the street and disappeared from his sight.
“With boys like that”—then said the colonel, returning to his soliloquizing—“it is often an odd thing about boys like that.”