“Howdy,” says Bill Hadley, as friendly as you please. “Sellin’ lots of pickles?”
“No,” says Poppy, with a face as long as the day before Christmas, “we haven’t sold any.”
“Which hain’t to be wondered at,” says Bill. “Fur them four samples that you left with my wife was the rottenest pickles that ever sneaked into a glass bottle. What’d you flavor ’em with?—fumigated sauerkraut?”
“Jerry thinks it was an old rubber boot,” Poppy grinned weakly.
“Um.... No rubber boot ever taste that bad.”
“You’re lucky,” says I, wishing he’d light into us and thus end the suspense, “that you didn’t eat them. For if you had you’d be in bed to-night along with the rest of the people.”
That seemed to surprise him.
“What do you mean?” says he, looking at me curiously.
“Haven’t you heard,” says I, surprised in turn, “about the people being poisoned?”
“Sure thing.”