Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/90

 Mrs. Sampson leaned over the front banister and gently called her husband from the study. The Preacher followed the direction of her indignant index finger, adjusted his glasses, looked again, and yet again, gasped a little, and was scarcely able to believe his eyes.

The Preacher's son was just on the point of taking a fresh light, and Lonely was carelessly flecking the ash from the end of his weed, with a twitch of the little finger known only to the connoisseur.

"Lionel Clarence Sampson!" cried a sudden stentorian voice, out of the smoke-hung stillness.

At the first familiar cadence of that deep chest-tone, Lonely lifted his heel from the nail which held him on the sloping shingles, and with great neatness and dispatch disappeared in one quick slide down the east side of the shed. From there he made his prompt escape under a broken base-board on the back fence, and from the secure position of the Allison's chicken-coop roof waited proceedings.

Lionel, at the sound of that voice, dropped his telltale burning brand, as though stung