Page:The New-Year's Bargain (1884).djvu/195

 looked highly pleased at the success of his gift. "I never eat 'em till the proper time comes, and that isn't for three weeks yet. But I know an old lady who persists in making them all the year round, in season and out; and as I thought a pie would be something new, and a good thing to bring, I dropped in on the way here and stole one from her buttery. They were just whipping the cat for the theft as I came away."

"But wasn't that wrong?" asked Max, with his mouth full of the pie.

"Um!" replied November, with a keen, funny look, "if I had squeezed it into a can now, and smashed it, perhaps it might have been called so!"

Max blushed, and hung down his head.

"Never mind," went on November, more kindly. "We won't discuss the point of our respective honesties, I think! But I must confess that we Months are not as conscientious as we should be. Every one of us steal something wherever we go; and the worst of it is, that we