“No, I don’t see,” the boy protested, “I’m going to ask who, what?”
“Her!”
Lefty dropped on top of the box and gazed at Panama with a look of miscomprehension. “What are you talking about? You don’t mean that—not Elinor?”
Panama nodded his head with enthusiasm, smiling with self-satisfaction over the idea he had perfected.
“Sure—Elinor! Last night, when I went over to ask her, I lost my nerve again. There we were, by the old Mission gate, alone in the moonlight with no one within a mile of us and I couldn’t work up enough guts to say the word!”
“Why not?” the boy asked in a cool manner of indifference.
“I was helpless, licked! Don’t you see, kid? I can’t talk! But you and your college learnin’! Say, that’s how I got the idea! It’ll be a cinch——”
Panama’s proposition completely stunned the other man and he sat gazing blankly at his friend with wide, uncomprehending eyes, certain that his very ears were deceiving him.
“You—you want me to ask her for you?”
“Sure! Why not? You’re the only guy in the world that I’d let do that for me!”