She'd dug Buddy out of the wardrobe and had him propped up in a corner.
"Better unstopper him and take off the bandages," says I.
And say, he had a lot of language corked up inside of him. It wasn't very sisterly, either, and most of it would have sounded better at a race-track; but I shut the transom and motioned to Sadie to let him spiel away, never chippin' in a word, only standing one side and lookin' him over.
So far as the outside went he was a credit to the family—one of these slim clean-cut youngsters, with a lot of curly red hair, pinky-white cheeks, and a pair of blue eyes that had nine kinds of deviltry in 'em. I could figure out how mother might be able not to see anything but good in Buddy. Hanged if I could get very sore on him myself, and knowin' how he'd been cuttin' up, at that.
"Well," says I, when he'd got out of breath some, "feel any better, do you?"
"Huh!" says he, givin' me a squint sideways. "Some cheap skate of a private detective, eh! You can't throw a scare into me that way, sis. Chase him out."
"Buddy," says I, "give up the rings."
"How'd you know there was more than one?" says he.
"Give up," says I, holdin' out me hand.
He did it, like a little man. There was two besides the marquise; one an emerald as big as a lima bean, and the other a solitaire spark that could have been shoved up for three or four hundred. You see, a woman like Mrs. Purdy Pell generally has a collection of those things lyin' around on her dressin'-table, and; knew if Buddy'd got any, he'd made a haul.