“Yes. Big yellow ones for the kids—crippled kids.”
“Crippled keeds.” The flower merchant grinned a broad grin. “The biggest, the ver’ best!”
The flowers had been boxed and paid for, the proprietor stood in his doorway bidding Johnny good-bye, when a motor horn sounded close at hand. Johnny started. He believed it a car. To his surprise, though he looked up and down the street, there was no car near enough to have produced that sound.
“Speed boat.” Angelo Piccalo grinned once more. “My boy. Name Angelo. See! Fine boy, that one. No cripple heem!”
The boy who grinned up at them from the river was surely no cripple. Some eighteen years of age, he was the picture of perfect youth.
“Go to college next year,” Piccalo confided. “Beeg gentleman some time, my boy!”
Johnny will never know why he went down the iron steps that led to the landing place where the speed boat rested. There were times when he almost regretted having done so.
“Hello, Angelo!” he greeted. “That’s a fine boat.”
“Not so bad.” The younger Angelo’s eyes took him in at a glance. “Not much speed. Trade it in for a better one soon.”
“This flower business must pay very well,” Johnny told himself. “Bet he’s got a car, a fast one. Going to college, too.”