Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/102

 an' car'mels, an' things, just whenever you like?" asked Betty Doyle.

"'Course I can!" said Lonely, importantly.

A little chorus of wondering "Ohs!" went up from the astonished circle.

"Why," proceeded Lonely, seeing red, and once more proceeding to murder Truth,—"why, all I got to do is to take a box and sit down an' eat w'at I want. But choc'late mice are w'at take me! They 're great, are n't they? So soft an' mushy inside, an' then the taste of the choc'late kind o' mixed in with it!" He felt in his pocket with a sudden remembering hand. "Gee! I had six or seven in here a few minutes ago! Must have forgot an' eaten 'em up, I guess!"

He paced up and down in front of the bake-shop with a swelling sense of his own importance, puffing up like a pouter pigeon.

"Who 'd 'a' thunk it!" said the impressed but illiterate Jennie Biffins, wiping her mouth with her dress-sleeve.

"I guess I 'll have a car'mel or two now!" said Lonely, casually. He opened the little bell-hung door and disappeared. A minute