Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/233

Rh "No? Goin' to go it by your lonely?"

She nodded, her little jaw squared.

"All right." He grinned audaciously. "I 'll hold your hand, this trip."

"How d' you know I 'll let you?"

"Oh, you know a good thing when you see it."

"You 're kind o' pop'lar with yourself, ain't you?"

"Well, I 'm the hit o' the season. Where 're you goin' to sit?" They stood beside a pile of boxes that held "liquid refreshments" in their racks. There was not a chair vacant. "Here," he said, lifting down a box, "they won't need all these till I start drinkin'. Make yourself at home."

He sat her down, with her back against the pile of boxes. "Gee!" he said, sitting beside her, "you 're a swell dresser fer a picnic. You look as if you 'd been done by one o' those Sixt' Avenue windah-riggers."

She accepted this admiration as the beginning of her revenge on the elder brother. "D' you like it?" she asked, flicking down the ruffles on her bosom.

"Sure I like it—all but those finger mufflers." He referred to her gloves.

"What 's the matter with them?" She spread her hands in her lap.

"They 're in the way. I 'd as soon hold a canvas ham. Ain't they hot?"

She nodded. "Kind o'." She took one off, in a manner that pretended to be innocently curious on the subject, and turned her hand over on her knee, studying it.