Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/397

 and caused that artful simulation of utter weariness, far be it from his present biographer to say.

But he was promptly given a generous, an almost too generous, drink of cherry brandy, and even before Pauline Augusta was carried off to bed in the quiet, cool house, his old-time self-content had returned to him. Yet he was glad to be let alone. He lay in the sun, steaming, alone and forgotten, dreamily watching the open sky and inwardly remarking what fine, warm-feeling stuff cherry brandy really was.

Half an hour later. Doctor Ridley came out of the quiet and muffled house, his faded old eyes unnaturally bright, his fingers meditatively feeling through the two capacious pockets hidden away under his black coat-tails. For once in his life that almost unfailing supply of horehound drops and peppermints, which had brought happiness to many a dozen children, was found to be exhausted. He had been hearing a thing or two about Lonely O'Malley. Again he felt fruitlessly in the depths of his pockets, looking short-sightedly about for the boy himself.