Part 61 (1/2)
”How did he come by that scratch?” said Mamie, coldly sticking to her point.
”I'll tell you quick enough. But let's start in on the eats first. You wouldn't keep a coming champ waiting for his grub, would you? Look how he's lamping that candy.”
”Were you going to let the poor mite stuff himself with candy, Steve Dingle?”
”Sure. Whatever he says goes. He owns the joint after this afternoon.”
Mamie swiftly removed the unwholesome delicacy.
”The idea!”
Kirk was busying himself with the chafing-dish.
”What have you got in here, Steve?”
”Lobster, colonel. I had to do thirty miles to get it, too.”
Mamie looked at him fixedly.
”Were you going to feed lobster to this child?” she asked with ominous calm. ”Were you intending to put him to bed full of broiled lobster and marshmallows?”
”Nix on the rough stuff, Mamie,” pleaded the embarra.s.sed pugilist. ”How was I to know what kids feed on? And maybe he would have pa.s.sed up the lobster at that and stuck to the sardines.”
”Sardines!”
”Ain't kids allowed sardines?” said Steve anxiously. ”The guy at the store told me they were wholesome and nouris.h.i.+ng. It looked to me as if that ought to hit young Fitzsimmons about right. What's the matter with them?”
”A little bread-and-milk is all that he ever has before he goes to bed.”
Steve detected a flaw in this and hastened to make his point.
”Sure,” he said, ”but he don't win the bantam-weight champeens.h.i.+p of Connecticut every night.”
”Is that what he's done to-day, Steve?” asked Kirk.
”It certainly is. Ain't I telling you?”
”That's the trouble. You're not. You and Mamie seem to be having a discussion about the nouris.h.i.+ng properties of sardines and lobster.
What has been happening this afternoon?”
”Bad boy,” remarked William Bannister with his mouth full.
”That's right,” said Steve. ”That's it in a nutsh.e.l.l. Say, it was this way. It seemed to me that, having no kid of his own age to play around with, his nibs was apt to get lonesome, so I asked about and found that there was a guy of the name of Whiting living near here who had a kid of the same age or thereabouts. Maybe you remember him? He used to fight at the feather-weight limit some time back. Called himself Young O'Brien. He was a pretty good sc.r.a.pper in his time, and now he's up here looking after some gent's prize dogs.
”Well, I goes to him and borrows his kid. He's a sc.r.a.ppy sort of kid at that and weighs ten pounds more than his nibs; but I reckoned he'd have to do, and I thought I could stay around and part 'em if they got to mixing it.”
Mamie uttered an indignant exclamation, but Kirk's eyes were gleaming proudly.
”Well?” he said.
Steve swallowed lobster and resumed.