"Rather!" he cried in a burst, "if the grocer's not lookin'!"
"I mean in your tea! Do you take sugar in your tea?"
Prissy was still smiling.
Nipper appeared to acquiesce. Two knobs of sugar were dropped in. The whipped cream out of the wide-mouthed bottle was spooned delicately on the top, and with a yet more charming smile the cup was passed to him. He held it between his finger and thumb, as an inquiring naturalist holds a rare beetle. Then he put it down on a low fragment of wall and looked at it.
"One lump or two?" queried Prissy again, graciously transferring her attentions to Joe Craig.
"Eh, what?" ejaculated that warrior. Prissy repeated her question.
"As many as I can get!" cried the boy.
So one by one the brigands were served, and the subdued look which rests upon a Sunday-school picnic at the hour of refreshment settled down upon them. The Smoutchy boy is bad and bold, but he does not like you to see him in the act of eating. His instinct is to get behind a wall, or into the thick of a copse and do it there. A similar feeling sends the sparrow with a larger crumb than the others into the seclusion of his nest among the ivy.
Nevertheless the bread and jam, the raisins, and the sheep's-head-pie disappeared 'like snow off a dyke.' The wonder of the thimbleful cups, continually replenished, grew more and more surprising; and, winking slyly at each other the Smoutchies passed them in with a touch of their caps to be filled and refilled again and again. Prissy kept the kettle beside her, out of which she poured the water brought by Timothy Tracy as she wanted it. The golden colour of the tea degenerated, but so long as a few drops of milk remained to mask the fraud from their eyes, the Smoutchies drank the warm water with equal relish.
"Besides it's so much better for your nerves, you know!" said Prissy, putting her action upon a hygienic basis.