Page:Jean Webster--Much ado about Peter.djvu/255

Rh Peter, but Mr. Lane had caught it, and had remarked to Bobby:

"That's a deuced pretty maid you've got there."

"Annie's the bulliest maid we ever had," Bobby had returned appreciatively. "She swipes cake for me when Nora is n't looking."

But Peter had frowned angrily, as he longingly sized up Mr. Lane, and wished he were not a gentleman so that he could punch him. It was none of Mr. Lane's business whether Annie was pretty or not.

At that time Annie could do no wrong, and Peter had not thought of blaming her for Mr. Lane's too-open admiration, but now he wrathfully accused her of trying to flirt with gentlemen, than which, in Peter's estimation, she could do no worse. As he could take it out of neither of them in blood—which his soul thirsted for—he added it to the grocer's score, and his fingers fairly itched to be at work. The grocer was just the sort of man that he