“Certainly. Why should you doubt it?”
“Oh—because I hit him, an’ I’m a ‘young one,’ an’—I’m gen’ally doin’ somethin’ I hadn’t oughter. But if you mean it I’ll come, if my mother will let me.”
“I shall ask her,” said Mr. Brook, cheerfully. “I have hopes she will say ‘yes.’ Then Dolloway, here, shall teach you how to ride.”
“No, I sha’n’t teach nobody to break his neck.”
“Perhaps you may have a horse of your own, some day,” calmly pursued Mr. Brook, undisturbed by Dolloway’s present rebellion against authority.
Robert gasped. Such a “perhaps” literally took his breath away. Then he asked:
“Could I ride him bareback?”
“I presume you would attempt it.”
“If I ’tempted it I’d do it. They ain’t no back down ter me; I’ve got grit, I have. Bonny, here, she would ’a’ give up—kerflummux! a sellin’ those chrysms, but I made her hold on. If it hadn’t ’a’ been fer me she wouldn’t ’a’ made nothin’, hardly.”
Bonny winced. The least said about chrysanthemums the better she liked it now. But she answered: “How about the dozen which Miss Agnew bought? Where were you at that time?”