Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/105

 ever feel like gettin' somebody to help you?"

"How d' you mean?"

"Why, when he 's mad about you not doing them kind o' things fast enough!"

"Nope," said Lonely. "Pop don't like folks round the shop!"

"Then when yer goin' to bring us out some?" piped up a very young and indiscreet little boy in a checked petticoat.

Lonely looked at him scornfully, hunched up his shoulder, and turned away to the window.

At last, driven beyond endurance, Annie Eliza herself repeated that audacious question.

"Why, any old time, I guess," answered the baker's son, carelessly. "An' some choc'late mice, too, eh?" he added, making an indescribable clucking noise with his tongue, against the roof of his mouth, as he wagged his head and pointed out the pasteboard box filled with rodent delicacies, to the end of each one of which was attached an elastic tail, making them all the more wonderful and lifelike.

A dozen mouths watered at the thought, involuntarily. They crowded round him, and