“Kain’t do it,” he again turned us down.

“Why not? Isn’t ten per cent enough for you?”

“A promise is a promise.”

“Meaning which?” says Poppy.

“As I told you, the recipe is a secret. An’ when it was given to me I was made to promise that I’d never let it git out of my hands.”

I quickly got the leader’s ear.

“Find out who gave him the recipe,” I whispered.

But did we put anything over on old Butch? Not so you could notice it. Instead of dishing out to us the hoped-for answer, he started talking about the time his mule rolled in a box of mortar and lost all its hair.

There was a “do-or-die” look on Poppy’s face.

“We’ve got to have pickles,” says he.