"Why, Hemmingway!" says she. "I am surprised. Naughty, naughty!"
"Don't worry, lady," says I. "The kid's got it dead right—it's one of them kind."
Then I wets my finger and shows him how it'll go "S-z-z!" when I touch it off. That gets a laugh out of little Hemmingway, and in a minute we're all good friends.
She's Mrs. Piddie, of course, and she's a brick. Say, how is it these two-by-fours can pull out such good ones so often? Why, if she'd been got up accordin' to this year's models, and could have thrown the front she ought to, she'd have been fit for a first-tier box at the grand op'ra.
"Chee!" thinks I. "Did she pick Piddie in the dark?"
She'd come in to drag him out shoppin' and hypnotize him into loosenin' up. It was a case of gettin' things for little Hemmingway.
"Me, I go have new s'oes, an' new coat wif pockets too," says he.
Say, they wins me, kids like that do. There's some I ain't got any use for, the kind brought up in hotels and boardin' houses that learn to play to the gallery before they can feed themselves, and others I could name; but clean, grinnin' youngsters, with big eyes that take in everything, they're good to have around. And, little Hemmy was a star. I got so int'rested showin' him things in the office that I clean forgot about Piddie and what he was up to.
"He will be back soon, won't he?" says Mrs. Piddie.
Now if you give me time I can slick up an answer so it'll sound like the truth and mean something else; but as an offhand liar I'm a frost. Somehow I always has to swaller somethin' before I can push out a cold dope. Course, I knew he'd got to be back before long; but I see right off that this wa'n't any day for a fam'ly reunion. Piddle wa'n't goin' to be any too sociable by dinner time that night, 'less'n he'd hit up the bucketshop, which the chances was against. So it was my turn to make a foxy play.