But he dared not do it. Indeed, there was something about her which inspired him with a respect such as he had never before felt for a girl, and as he told Robert Macpherson in confidence, he wanted to crawl into his boots when, after his assertion that she was a brick, she lifted her eyes so wonderingly, and said:
“I’m a what?”
“A brick,” he answered; “don’t you know what that is?”
“Yes, I know it in its place; but I don’t know what you mean when you give the name to me. Nothing bad, I hope.”
“Certainly not; it’s a compliment. I called you so because I like you and think you smart,—clever, you English would say, I suppose.”
And Godfrey began to shake down his pants, and stand first on one foot and then upon the other, in his perplexity how to appear well in the mind of this little girl, who was so young, and innocent, and honest, and yet so old in some things.
“That’s slang, isn’t it?” Gertie asked.
And he replied:
“Yes, I suppose it would be called so, but it is very expressive. Don’t you like slang?”
“No, I do not, and I don’t see why nice people like you should use it so much.”