The excited boy obeyed, and Dumps, leaping on another chair beside him, sat down to listen, with ears erect, as if he knew what was coming.
“Oh, sir! you never—such a go!” began Robin, rubbing his hands together slowly as he spoke. “The Slogger! he twigged ’er at once. You’ll open your eyes so wide that you’ll never git ’em shut again, w’en you hears. No, I never did see such a lark! Edie’s found! I’ve seen her! She ain’t the Queen—oh no; nor yet one o’ the Queen’s darters—by no means; nor yet a duchess—oh dear no, though she’s like one. Who d’ye think she is? But you’ll never guess.”
“I’ll try,” said I, with a quiet smile, for I had subdued myself by that time.
“Try away then—who?”
“Miss Edith Blythe!”
On hearing this, little Slidder’s eyes began to open and glisten till they outshone his own buttons.
“Why—how—ever—did you come to guess it?” gasped the boy, on recovering himself.
“I did not guess it, I found it out. Do you suppose that nobody can find out things except Sloggers and pages in buttons?”
“Oh, sir, do tell!” entreated the boy.
I did tell, and after we had each told all that we knew, we mentally hugged ourselves, and grew so facetious over it that we began to address Dumps personally, to that intelligent creature’s intense satisfaction.