“Gaston Guè, si j’avais ma fron-de,
Gaston Guè, je te l’aurais fron-dé!”
This he translated for Harold’s benefit:—
“Gaston Guè, if I haf ma sling,
Gaston Guè, at you I vould fling!”
“Well! you needn’t ‘fling’ at us, Toiney,” laughed Nixon, stepping forward with a bold front. “Hullo! Harold!” he added in what he meant to be a most winning tone.
“Hullo, Harold! How are you?” supplemented Marcoo in accents equally sugared.
But the abnormally timid boy, with the pointed chin and slightly rodent-like face, only made an indistinguishable sound in his throat and slunk behind some bushes on the edge of the corn-patch.
Toiney, on the other hand, was never backward in responding vivaciously to a friendly greeting.
“Houp-e-là!” he explained in bantering astonishment as he surveyed the two scouts in the uniform which was strange to him. “Houp-e-là! We arre de boy! We arre de stuff, I guess, engh?” He pointed an earthy forefinger at the figures in khaki, his black eyes sparkling with whimsical flattery. “But, comment, you’ll no come for go in gran’ forêt agen, dat’s de tam’ you’ll get los’ agen—hein?”
“No, we’re not going any farther into the woods to-day. We came to see him.” Nixon nodded in the direction of Harold skulking timidly behind the berry bushes. “We want to speak to him about something.”