“But as for little Willy Kaatenstein—not looking in the least pale or puffy, he sat that evening, after dinner, on Uncle Will’s lap, wearing his own fine gold watch out of the jewel-case, and being continually invited to have a glass of beer.
“But in the kitchen, Emma was telling Juley that though she had once thought a great deal of little Willy Kaatenstein she now honestly believed him to be the very worst one of the four.——
“That story,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “was very tiresome. You shouldn’t ask me to tell you stories.”
“I am sorry if it tired you,” I said. “But the story was entirely fascinating. It was exactly like the Kaatensteins. And you, telling a story of the Kaatensteins, are delicately, oh, delicately incongruous!”
“Were you ever at a feast in the Kaatenstein duck-yard?” said my friend Annabel Lee.
“Yes, indeed,” said I, “along with Bill and Katy Kelly, at the age of eleven. And I have seen every toy in the black-walnut bureau.”
[“And] which would you,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “to be at a feast with the Kaatensteins at the age of eleven, or here, now, with me?”
“When all’s said,” said I, “here with you, now, by far.”
“’Tis very good of you,” said my friend Annabel Lee, and looked at me with her purple eyes.