Cheap Jack Zita

by S. Baring-Gould

'I won't take it.' The young fellow laughed with his merry eyes as well as with his fresh lips. 'Can you understand this, that it gave me five times as much pleasure as it did you to spin you along and see the red roses bloom in your cheeks and those dark eyes of yours twinkle as though there were Jack o' Lanterns dancing in them? Zita, it is not every day that a lad gets the chance of running a pretty girl along the ice. It is I am in debt to you. We'll square the account, anyhow.' He caught her head between his hands and gave her a kiss on her red lips. 'There is the account scored out, and a new account begun.'

'That is not fair!' exclaimed Zita, shrinking back.

'What! not settled? Again, then.' He kissed her once more. 'And so—till all is right, and the balance squared.'

Then he laughed, and, releasing her head, said—

'You know we raced,—that old Drownlands and I,—and you were to be the prize. I won you.' Then, seeing that she looked disturbed, he went off to, 'Now, Cheap Jackie, tell me, was not that a droll sort of a life, going over the world in that comical van?'

'It was a very happy life, and the van was not comical at all. It is splendid.'

'I have not seen it.'

'Then why did you call it unsuitable names?'

'A jolly life, was it?'