“What do you suppose it is that ails him?” he had promptly answered:
“Measles. Caught ’em from me. Ain’t that the limit?”
But Elsa who knew no slang understood him literally, and said:
“No, it isn’t, I had them once and the doctor scared my father dreadfully, telling him that folks could have them four times! Think of that! He said most people had them only once and the younger the lighter. So I guess Saint Augustine won’t be very ill. But—my heart! Do you suppose the monkeys can catch it? Wouldn’t that be awful!”
“I hope they will and die of them! Nasty little brutes! They keep my nerves on the jump all the time, hearing them chatter and yell right behind me so. You keep real far back, won’t you? I don’t know how you can stand them; but don’t—please don’t let them hop on me again. I know they’re too heavy for you but I’m too nervous for words. I wish I’d never heard of ’em, the little gibbering idiots!”
Again Elsa laughed, this time so merrily that Gerald got angry.
“I don’t see anything so very funny in this predicament! Not so very amusing! My arms ache fit to break and all a girl cares about a fellow is to giggle at him.”
And now, indeed, was the “giggle” so prolonged that its victim had to join in it, and had Mrs. Calvert been there to hear she would have rejoiced to see shy Elsa behaving just like any other happy girl. Yet, after a moment, she sobered and begged:
“Don’t mind my doing that, but I couldn’t help it. It seems so funny for a boy to have ‘nerves’ or to be afraid of monkeys. Papa has a song:
“‘The elephant now goes round and round,
The band begins to play;
The little boys under the monkeys’ cage,
Had better get out of the way—the way—
Would better get out of the way!’”