"If that's money, I guess I can coax it out of him some way or other. Anyhow, I mean to get it, by hook or by crook," thought the bad boy.
But he pretended he didn't care two straws what was in the handkerchief. "Come," said he, "put your old rags in your pocket, and let's go swimming."
Now Preston had always longed to swim, chiefly, I suppose, because he didn't know how. It was a remarkably warm day in October; but the water was very cold: it was not proper for anybody to go into it; and both the boys knew this.
Preston looked up at Tommy; and that bad charm began to work. He saw a picture in his mind's eye of—
"A quiet nook in the running brook,
Where the school-boys went to swim."
So, instead of running away, as he ought to have done, he kept staring up in the tree at Tommy, and said,—
"I can't go swimming; mother won't let me. But I should think you might come down here and give us a piece of your gingerbread."
Tommy dropped nimbly from the tree, and alighted on his head.
"What's that you say about your mother!"