Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/391

Rh There was an awkward pause in the conversation until she said "They 're fi-i-ne!" bending over the candies. "Won't yuh try one?"

She held out the box to him and he reached across the intervening space to take a chocolate drop. He put it whole into his mouth, and rolled it over into the pouch of his cheek in a way which made it plain to her that he had not eaten candies since the days when he had sucked "penny lasters."

She nibbled a chocolate with a superlative daintiness and watched him.

He was staring solemnly at the wall. "I 'm over in Bowler's," he said. "Pipp 's in the Pennsylvania offices."

"Oh?"

"We ust to go to school together up home. I came down to N' York with him."

"Did yuh?"

"Yep." He nodded, sucking on the bulge in his cheek. "We sort o' ran away. I 've known Pipp ever since he was about so high." He held his hat out on a level with his shoulder and smiled askew, around the chocolate.

"Where 'd yuh ust to live?" she asked politely.

He named the little town up state. He had driven his father's bakery wagon after school hours there, and "Pipp," who was the doctor's son, had ridden with him "for the fun of it."

There was a look in his eyes which she did not understand. It came with the memory of those sleepy