“Langford,––no! Langford’s mouth all stitched up. He say nothing at all. You wait!”
Sol put his fingers in his mouth and whistled.
In a second, the half-witted, ragamuffin Smiler bobbed his grinning face round the door post. Hanson waved him in and when the youngster saw that only Sol Hanson and Phil were inside he raced round and round Phil in sheer delight, like a puppy-dog round its master. He rubbed his hand up and down Phil’s clothes, and he kept 102 pointing to himself and to Phil. Phil could not make out his meaning.
“He says you and him good pals,” interpreted Hanson.
“You bet we are, Smiler!” said Phil, patting the boy’s matted hair.
“Smiler and me make a deal. We going to live together after this,” said Sol. “Smiler he got nobody. Smiler hungry most all the time; dirty, no place to sleep; just a little mongrel-pup. I got lots of grub, nice shack, good beds. Smiler get lots of bath. Smiler and me we going to be pals. What you say, Smiler?”
The boy grinned again and gurgled in happy acquiescence.
“But the kid can’t talk?”
“Oh, he talk all right; you bet! He talk with his head, and his eyes, his feet and his hands; talk every old way only you don’t savvy his kind of talk.”
As soon as work was over, Phil hurried up the hill home. He had had a trying day of it one way and another and he was longing for a refreshing bath and a clean-up.