"I didn't," said Budge.
"What did you do?" I demanded.
"I didn't bite it at all—I only wanted to see how it would feel between my teeth—that's all."
I felt the corners of my mouth breaking down, and hurried back to the library, where I spent a quiet quarter of an hour in pondering over the demoralizing influence exerted upon principle by a sense of the ludicrous. For some time afterward the boys got along without doing anything worse than make a dreadful noise, which caused me to resolve to find some method of deadening piazza floors if I ever owned a house in the country. In the occasional intervals of comparative quiet, I caught snatches of very funny conversation. The boys had coined a great many words whose meaning was evident enough, but I wondered greatly why Tom and Helen had never taught them the proper substitutes.
Among others was the word "deader," whose meaning I could not imagine. Budge shouted:—
"O Tod! there comes a deader! See where all them things like rooster's tails are a-shakin'?—Well, there's a deader under them."
"Datsh funny," remarked Toddie.
"An' see all the peoples a-comin' along," continued Budge, "they know 'bout the deader, an' they're goin' to see it fixed. Here it comes. Hello, deader!"
"Hay-oh, deader!" echoed Toddie.
What could "deader" mean?