“Brick,” said the little girl, severely, “if you say charms you’ll never be a gentleman.”
“Don’t want to be a gen’l’man,” he replied, stoutly. “Kin’ Providence had a little coffee in de wattah when he made dis chile. I’se a-goin’ to stay cullid.”
“Well, I’m going to be a lady,” said the little girl, severely, “and I’m not going to waste time talking to trash like you. I just promised mother to run and see how you be.”
Brick grinned. He did not care for her thrusts. “Tell your mummy,” he said, “that I’m a-comin’ down to call. Kin you see my buttins? Do the light strike ’em dere?” and he moved anxiously nearer the hanging electric globe.
“Yes,” said Airy, scornfully surveying the breast of his coat, which was one mass of brass buttons; “you look like the button drawer at Moses & Brown’s turned upside down.”
“I sewed ’em on myself,” he went on, unheedingly. “Young Mass’ Tite he guv me de buttins. I guess they ben’t quite plumb, but I’ve got ’em.”
“I guess you have to work here,” she remarked.
Brick groaned.
“You won’t like that,” she went on, scornfully.
“Like it, honey—Brick hates it like pison—but, golly! de grub—dat’s what keeps dis niggah heah.”