“I didn’t know there were any of them running wild around here,” Brent said. “Is it against the law to shoot them?”
Jiminy, that cake-eater looked awful funny. He was a rare specimen, kind of. His jacket was long, and it had slanting pockets in it. I don’t know why they have pockets at all, those fellows. They carry crumbs instead of dough, that’s what I heard. He had a kind of a shoe-lace disguised as a necktie.
Brent said, “I wonder where he spends his time.”
“It’s about the only thing he does spend,” I said. “I’ve seen that fellow before, I think he’s staying in Brookside. He goes to the dances in Leeds and Catskills and Athens; I’ve seen him all over. He stands in front of Bartlett’s store down in Catskill. He’s a he-hopper. Those fellows let girls pay their own carfare.”
Brent said, “They allow them on street cars then?”
“Let’s row in and speak to him,” Warde said; “they’re tame, most of them; they’re harmless except when you feed them cake.”
“Sure,” I said; “let’s row in. He’ll talk to us. Why shouldn’t he? Talk is cheap.”
CHAPTER XX
A RARE SPECIES
We rowed close in shore near the outlet and the sharpy spoke to us first. We rested on our oars a minute to talk with him. He had a funny kind of a lisp in the way he talked. Not exactly a lisp, but sort of like it.
He said, “Are there any eels around here?” I suppose he wanted to be introduced to them.