Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/140

 "Will you tell me things—when you get back?"

The glow in Lonely's midriff was mounting to an intensity always ominous. Yet he decided to take his time about it, and enjoy the taste of the situation to the full.

He drew closer to the other boy with his heels well planted apart.

"Want to come?" he asked at last, casually.

"Right into the main show?"

"Of course! Right in!"

"Would n't we have to hook in?" parried the Preacher's son, infected by the other boy's spirit of adventure.

"Nope!" said Lonely, secretly feeling for his blue ticket.

"But where would we ever get half a dollar?" almost wailed Lionel Clarence. The O'Reillys, he knew, had sold their cook-stove so that the family might attend the performance en bloc; but the O'Reillys were lazy, improvident, and shiftless, a blot on the fair name of Chamboro.

Lonely smiled loftily. He flipped the blue ticket carelessly, contemptuously, disdainfully, into the other boy's lap.