“But Miss Summer—she say that you better have die,” put in Taro.
“Yes,” said Gozo, sighing, “it was my misfortune not to get killed.”
“Oh, don’t, don’t! Just think how unhappy we would all have been if you had never come home,” said tender-hearted Marion, “and think what you’d have missed—never to have seen us—mother and Billy and the baby and me.”
Gozo admitted that their acquaintance certainly was worth living for.
“Our acquaintance!” said Marion, reproachfully; “our love you should say. We love you, Gozo.”
“Then if you love Gozo why you nod waid upon him like unto Iris an’ me?” queried Plum Blossom. “See how we fill up thad pipe mebbe twenty-one times an’ also we bring wiz tea—”
“An’ also I fan him,” added Iris, suiting the action to the words.
For a moment Marion looked very thoughtful.
“I know,” she said, “that you love him, too, but even if I just talk to him, I can love him just the same. Can’t I, Gozo?”
“Yes, but you only love me for mebbe liddle w’ile. Then soon’s my father come you desert me. Tha’s same thing with Plum Blossom and Iris. Me? I am grade hero when I am alone, but when my father come, I am jus’ liddle insignificant speck—nothing!”