Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/107

 house by way of the bake-shop, and whenever he beheld an audience awaiting his egress, he appeared before them smacking his lips with great relish and protesting he could still taste that last chocolate mouse. But never a chocolate mouse, or a licorice-stick, or an all-day sucker did he deign to pass on to his band of hungering and still hoping worshipers and followers. Six new glass jars of sweets added to the poignancy of their misery, standing on a shelf in alluring regularity, marked "Peppermint," "Wintergreen," "Lemon Drops," "Horehound," "Extra Mixed," and last, but not least, "Brandy Drops."

This latest spectacular addition to the bake-shop's stock was too much even for the Preacher's son, then strictly enjoined to shun and eschew the society of Lonely O'Malley. Lionel Clarence, after feasting his eyes on the wonderful window, crowded in among the little baby-carriages and go-carts and urchins and damsels of the street, and once more met his old friend Lonely in secret. Then, flaunting all parental mandates, he stole a saucepan from the home kitchen and with the New Boy repaired to Watterson's Creek, where