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 smile threatened to jostle his ears while he listened. Once or twice he chuckled, too. And when Laurie had finished he laughed until tears stood in his gray eyes. Laurie frowned then. He supposed it did sound rather funny, but Brose's laughter lasted too long. It wasn't that funny! Then, just when Laurie was forming a stinging rebuke in his mind, Brose wiped his streaming eyes with a sleeve of his old brown sweater and became coherent. He had previously attempted without success to speak.

"Well, if that don't beat the Cubs!" he gasped. "I got to hand it to you fellers for using the old bean! And, say, what about Miss Pansy, eh? Ain't she running true to form? I'll say she is! You can't beat that little woman, fellers. She's plucky, she is! Think of her living down here all by her lonesome, and tickled to do it because she's on a boat! Funny, eh? And sporting, too, eh? She's a wonder, Miss Pansy is!"

"You know her then?" asked Laurie, mollified.

"Know her? Know Miss Pansy Comfort? Known her since I was that high." Brose swept a hand along about six inches from the deck. "Used to be in her Sunday-school class. Done odd