Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/402

 "Fiddlesticks!" said the old Doctor again.

Yet the two old cronies continued to pace up and down together, arm in arm, under the fruit-laden trees, looking after the sandy-headed boy as he was led away into the strange, shadowy house.

There Miss Arabella and the Widow Starbottle buzzed solicitously about him, imagining that his all too obvious unhappiness was something of the body, and not of the soul. Even Lionel Clarence's mother wanted to know if Lonely did not feel proud of himself, and asked him for the fourth time just how he did it, and patted him on the head, and said he was one of Nature's little noblemen.

"What t' ell 's all this rumpus about?" was the bewildered question which Nature's little nobleman was asking himself in vain.

Then a door that led into the darkened bedroom opened quietly, and Pauline Augusta's mother appeared on the threshold.

Lonely edged closer to Miss Arabella.

"Say, Mis' Steiner," he muttered, under his breath, guardedly, "are we square 'bout those Strawberry Reds?"

Miss Arabella had completely forgotten.