Page:Daskam--The imp and the angel.djvu/163

The Imp Disposes practical method of joining a general conversation. Questions or contradictions were fatal to his social schemes. In order to avoid the subsequent embarrassment of suppression or even expulsion, he had become an adept at plunging directly up to his neck in the stream of talk, dispensing easily with preliminary assumptions and final conclusions.

"Did you know that the ice they put around the thing that holds it while it's freezing is awful to eat?" he added confidentially. "I always eat out of the ice-cart at home, while the man is tak- [sic] it in the house—little bits on the floor of the wagon, you know. You can lick off the sawdust and they taste very good. Last Sunday morning I took a few little pieces out of one of those tall red pails out in the back—" he paused and scowled reminiscently, "I had to swallow them, because I began to, but they made me feel awfully—awfully!"

Miss Eleanor was looking over his head, through the wood. Her eyes were very soft and dark. She made no reply and he knew perfectly that she had not been listening. His sense of ill-treatment returned. 135