“Sure I am,” returns the other diffidently. “But I ought to be home by half-past.”
“Aw, home be damned! It won’t take long to drink a pint. Come on.”
“All right,” returns the other, grinning sheepishly.
They go over the way to a saloon, and I pause in my own door. Presently a little girl comes down, carrying a tin pail.
“Whose little girl are you?” I inquire, not recognizing her.
“Mamma ain’t home to-day,” she returns quickly.
“Mamma?” I reply. “Why do you say that? I don’t want your mamma. I live here.”
“Oh, I thought you was the insurance man,” she adds, grinning. “You look just like him.”
“Aren’t you the coal man’s little girl?”
“Yes.”