Page:Daskam--The imp and the angel.djvu/28

The Imp and the Angel and it occurred to the Imp that they could run much better barefooted. He proposed this to his friend, who hesitated a moment.

"Will I get a cold?" he asked doubtfully.

"Course not, no!" said the Imp impatiently, tugging at his tennis-shoes.

Algernon looked back at the hotel and wavered. Then a look of determination came over his little pale face, and sitting down by the Imp, he took off first his shiny rubbers, and then his ties and blue stockings. As his feet touched the damp, fresh sand, he sighed deeply and wiggled his toes down into it.

"I will never wear my shoes again," he announced solemnly. The Imp stared.

"No," repeated the Angel, "I will not," and before the Imp could stay him, he had lifted up the little bundle and pitched it, stockings and all, into a great hole just ahead of them, above the tide-line, where the beach garbage was collected and burned. Well, well! There was something in this Algernon Marmaduke Schuyler, after all! So thrilled was the Imp by the independent spirit of his new friend that he forgot, or at least failed to remember seriously enough, that a certain old 10