“It don’t matter,” said Bill calmly. “I’ll write it for ’im; the old man don’t know my fist.”
He sat down at the table, and, squaring his shoulders, took a noisy dip of ink, and scratching his head, looked pensively at the paper.
“Better spell it bad, Bill,” suggested Ned.
“Ay, ay,” said the other. “’Ow do you think a boy would spell ‘sooicide,’ Ned?”
The old man pondered. “S-o-o-e-y-s-i-d-e,” he said slowly.
“Why, that’s the right way, ain’t it?” inquired the cook, looking from one to the other.
“We mustn’t spell it right,” said Bill, with his pen hovering over the paper. “Be careful, Ned.”
“We’ll say ‘killed myself instead,’” said the old man. “A boy wouldn’t use such a big word as that p’raps.”
Bill bent over his work, and, apparently paying great attention to his friends’ entreaties not to write it too well, slowly wrote the letter.
“How’s this?” he inquired, sitting back in his seat.