“Sure! but you don’t get much. Say, are you fellows—twins, or what?”
“Twins?” repeated Laurie. “Where do you get that stuff? This fellow’s name is Anderson and mine’s Stenman. What’s yours?”
“Crow. Honest, is that a fact?” Crow looked appealingly at the other occupants of the table. These, however, two rather embarrassed-looking youngsters of fourteen or thereabouts, fixed their eyes on their plates, and Crow turned his regard incredulously back to the twins. “Gee, you fellows look enough alike to be—be—” He swallowed the word. “Aren’t you even related?”
Ned gazed speculatively at Laurie and Laurie gazed speculatively at Ned. “We might be,” hazarded the latter.
Laurie nodded. “If we went back far enough, we might find a common ancestor.”
The arrival of luncheon caused a diversion, although Crow, who was a round-faced, credulous-looking youth of perhaps seventeen, continued to regard them surreptitiously and in puzzlement. At last, making the passing of the salt an excuse, for further conversation, he asked, “Where do you fellows come from?”
“California,” said Ned.
“Santa Lucia,” said Laurie.
“Well, but,” sputtered Crow, “isn’t California in Santa—I mean, isn’t Santa—Say, you guys are joking, I’ll bet!”
“Methinks,” observed Ned, helping himself gravely to mustard, “his words sound coarse and vulgar.”