“Shucks!”
“We’re a-going to have fun to-day.”
“Oh!”
“For it’s Christmas, an’ we’ve bought some good cigars, an’ Pete says he’ll learn me sure. O’ course I’ve smoked some, you know. But I’d just as leaves stayed with you if I’d only knowed sooner. I wish you lived here. Did you smoke whole big cigars when you was beginning?”
“Do yu’ like flapjacks and maple syrup?” inquired the artful McLean. “That’s what I’m figuring on inside twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes! If they’d wait—”
“See here, Bill. They’ve quit expectin’ yu’, don’t yu’ think? I’d ought to waked, yu’ see, but I slep’ and slep’, and kep’ yu’ from meetin’ your engagements, yu’ see—for you couldn’t go, of course. A man couldn’t treat a man that way now, could he?”
“Course he couldn’t,” said Billy, brightening.