Steve detected a flaw in this and hastened to make his point.
“Sure,” he said, “but he don’t win the bantam-weight champeenship of Connecticut every night.”
“Is that what he’s done to-day, Steve?” asked Kirk.
“It certainly is. Ain’t I telling you?”
“That’s the trouble. You’re not. You and Mamie seem to be having a discussion about the nourishing properties of sardines and lobster. What has been happening this afternoon?”
“Bad boy,” remarked William Bannister with his mouth full.
“That’s right,” said Steve. “That’s it in a nutshell. Say, it was this way. It seemed to me that, having no kid of his own age to play around with, his nibs was apt to get lonesome, so I asked about and found that there was a guy of the name of Whiting living near here who had a kid of the same age or thereabouts. Maybe you remember him? He used to fight at the feather-weight limit some time back. Called himself Young O’Brien. He was a pretty good scrapper in his time, and now he’s up here looking after some gent’s prize dogs.
“Well, I goes to him and borrows his kid. He’s a scrappy sort of kid at that and weighs ten pounds more than his nibs; but I reckoned he’d have to do, and I thought I could stay around and part ’em if they got to mixing it.”
Mamie uttered an indignant exclamation, but Kirk’s eyes were gleaming proudly.
“Well?” he said.