“But I won’t go out in the evening,” she said wagging her saucy head at him.
“All right,” he replied, “but mind you’ve promised not to drop all the women you know. You’ll get warped and selfish, if you do.”
“What a wise man you are,” she said teasingly. “Do hurry and get your old farm ready, so I can be a farmer’s wife.”
I was in the Bonstone house nearly every day, and if I was not, Gringo told me all that went on. He never ran out on the Drive without his master. He was afraid of the policemen. On the Bowery where everybody knew him, he had often gone out alone.
I was anxious to know what he thought of the baby Cyria, and the farm, and one day I asked him to tell me his real feelings.
“Cross-your-heart feelings,” I said. “I know you don’t wear your heart on your sleeve.”
“Both things I hate,” he said grumpily, “but I’m going to make myself like ’em.”
“Oh, Gringo,” I said, “how can you hate Cyria.”
“She sticks her fingers in my eyes when no one’s looking,” he said.
“Doesn’t that prove what I say, that children are enormously clever,” I exclaimed, “but why don’t you get up, and move away?”