"Oh, little boy!" she called.
"Hunh?" and Willie stopped so suddenly that he endangered his equilibrium, although that isn't how he would have said it.
"Nice little boy," said the Girl soothingly, and she patted his tousled head while he gnawed a thumb in pained embarrassment. "I'm very tired. I have been walking a great distance. Could you tell me, please, where a lady, unattended, might get a night's lodging somewhere near here?"
"Hunh?" gurgled Willie through the thumb.
Wearily the Girl repeated it all and at its end Willie giggled. It was the most exasperating incident of a long series of exasperating incidents, and the Girl's grip on the bag tightened a little. Willie never knew how nearly he came to being hammered to death with fourteen pounds of solid gold.
"Well?" inquired the Girl at last.
"Dunno," said Willie. "Jimmy's got the stomach-ache," he added irrelevantly.
"Can't you think of a hotel or boarding-house near by?" the Girl insisted.
"Dunno," replied Willie. "I'm going to the drug store for a pair o' gorrick."
The Girl bit her lip, and that act probably saved Willie from the dire consequences of his unconscious levity, for after a moment the Girl laughed aloud.