"Can't I laugh in my own backyard, Charley?" he said. "By the Lord
Harry, I _will_ laugh inside my stakes! No man shall prevent me. The
Constitution of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, and
the Continental Congress give me the right. Now what have you got to
say?"
"I dunno but what you have me whipsawed there, Steve," replied Charley,
scratching his head. "Ef it's your right by the Constitootion, o'
course I ain't goin' to object."
"Do either of you object?" demanded Steve of Oscar and me in his
deepest bass. No, we didn't object; we fell down in the snow and
crowed like chanticleer.
"Hunh!" snorted Charley. "Hunh! Them boys hain't got brains in their
heads at all--nothin' but doodle-bugs!"
"Well, Charley," continued Steve, "as you don't object, and they don't
object, and I don't object, for God's sake let's have breakfast!"
"I'll go you, Steve," replied Charles seriously, and we entered the
house uproarious.
There in the kitchen was Mrs. Steve and the "company," a pretty little
bright-eyed thing, whose colour went and came at a word--more
particularly if Oscar said the word. The affair was at present in the
formal state--the dawn of realisation that two such wonderful and
magnificent creatures as Oscar and Sally existed. But they were not
Oscar and Sally except in the dear privacy of their souls. Yet how
much that is not obvious to the careless ear can be put into "Will you
have a buckwheat cake, Mr.
Pages:
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32