"Oh! Jicksy! Did I?" exclaimed the boy. I'm always saying one thing and meaning another, aren't I? Is that a lapsus linguae?
"It is in this case, Gummy. But go on—do."
"Well, Mr. Strout looks just like a piece of that green-speckled cheese Mr. Hardman has in his showcase —in the face, I mean."
"In the face of the showcase?" giggled Amy.
"Or the face of the cheese?" asked Janice demurely.
"Now, say, you girls go too far," complained Gummy, yet good-naturedly. "I mean Strout's face. It looks like the cheese, for he's all speckled. And the cheese is called Rockyford and tastes funnier than it looks."
"Oh, oh!" cried Janice, "you've got your cheese mixed with melons this time. It is Rockyford melons and Roquefort cheese."
"Jicksy! They sound pretty near the same," grumbled Gummy.
"Anyhow, that is how Abel Strout looks in the face—speckled.
And he came in, in that yellow dust-coat of his, looking like a
peeled sapling—so long and lean."
"My, what a wealth of description you have at your tongue's end," cried Janice, still in a gale of laughter. "A face like Roquefort cheese with a figure like a peeled sapling. Well!"
"You keep on you girls, and I won't ever get anywhere," complained Gummy.