"Why are you here, my boy? What are you doing?" he asked anxiously.
"I am holding back the sea!" said the little hero.
And it was literally true—that child's arm had held back the enemy that would have come in with a flood, carrying death and terrible destruction.
"WHISTLING FOR IT."
T
he "it" was his supper. Dinner had been a movable feast that day, tea indefinitely postponed, and Patch was beginning to fear that supper also was fading away beyond his grasp.
"And I may go on whistling till that flute bursts itself before I get a halfpenny," he remarked to himself in a tone of intense injury, eyeing the "flute" (which was really a penny whistle) anxiously as he rubbed it on his wet sleeve with a view to improving the notes. "All this day and not a——"
"I say, Patch," broke in a mournful voice from behind, "couldn't you lend me twopence just till to-morrow? It's to get some supper; I haven't sold a single box since morning."
"Supper!" echoed Patch, turning sharply on his supplicant. "Do you think I'd be blowing away here if I didn't want a supper myself? You'd better go on to the bank and ask them."