"I must say!" exclaimed the latter, strongly moved.

"I'm going to buy a beautiful present for every one," added the now fatuous giver.

"Every one!" It was all Merle could manage, and even it caused him to gulp.

"Every one," repeated the hopeless addict.

And even as he said it he was snared again, this time by an immense advertising placard propped on the counter. It hymned the virtues of the Ajax Invigorator. To the left sagged a tormented male victim of many ailments meticulously catalogued below, but in too fine print for offhand reading by one in a hurry. The frame of the sufferer was bent, upheld by a cane, one hand poignantly resting on his back. The face was drawn with pain and despair. "For twenty years I suffered untold agonies," this person was made to confess in large print. It was heartrending. But opposite the moribund wretch was a figure of rich health, erect, smartly dressed, with a full, smiling face and happy eyes. Surprisingly this was none other than the sufferer. One could hardly have believed them the same, but so it was. "The Ajax Invigorator made a new man of me," continued the legend. There were further details which seemed negligible to the philanthropist, because the pictured hero of the invigorator already suggested Judge Penniman, the ever-ailing father of Winona. The likeness was not wholly fanciful. True, the judge was not so abject as the first figure, but then he was not so obtrusively vigorous as the second.

"A bottle of that," said Wilbur, and pointed to the card.

The druggist thrust out a bottle already wrapped in a printed cover, and the price, as became a cut-rate pharmacy, proved to be ninety-eight cents.

A wish was now expressed that the advertising placard might also be taken in order that Judge Penniman might see just what sort of new man the invigorator would make of him. But this proved impracticable; the placard must remain where it stood for the behoof of other invalids. But there were smaller portraits of the same sufferer, it seemed, in the literature inclosing the bottle. It was the Merle twin who carried the purchases as they issued from the pharmacy. This was fitting, inevitable. The sodden philanthropist must have his hands free to spend more money.

They rested again at the Gumble counter--and now they were not alone.

The acoustics of the small town are faultless, and the activities of this spendthrift had been noised abroad. To the twins, as two of those and two of those and one of them were being ordered, came four other boys to linger cordially by and a.s.sist in the selections. Hospitality was not gracefully avoidable. The four received candy cigars and became mere hangers-on of the rich, lost to all self-respect, fawning, falsely solicitous, brightly expectant. Chocolate mice were next distributed.

The four guests were now so much of the party as to manifest quick hostility to a fifth boy who had beamingly essayed to be numbered among them. They officiously snubbed and even covertly threatened this fifth boy, who none the less lingered very determinedly by the host, and was presently rewarded with sticky largesse; whereupon he was accepted by the four, and himself became hostile to another aspirant.

But mere candy began to cloy--Solly Gumble had opened the second box of chocolate mice--and the host even abandoned his reenforced lemon, which was promptly communized by the group. He tried to think of something to eat that wouldn't be candy, whereupon mounted in his mind the pyramid of watermelons a block down the street before the Bon Ton Grocery.

"We'll have a watermelon," he announced in tones of quiet authority, and his cohorts gurgled applause.

They pressed noisily about him as he went to the Bon Ton. They remembered a whale of a melon they had seen there, and said they would bet he never had enough money to buy that one. Maybe he could buy a medium-sized one, but not that. All of them kept a repellent manner for any pa.s.sing boy who might be selfishly moved to join them. The spendthrift let them babble, preserving a rather grim silence. The whale of a melon was indeed a n.o.ble growth, and its price was thirty-five cents. The announcement of this caused a solemn hush to fall upon the sycophants; a hush broken by the cool, masterful tones of their host.

"I'll take her," he said, and paid the fearful price from a still weighty pocket. To the stoutest of the group went the honour of bearing off the lordly burden. They turned into a cool alley that led to the rear of the shops. Here in comparative solitude the whale of a melon could be consumed and the function be unmarred by the presence of volunteer guests.

"Open her," ordered the host, and the new knife was used to open her.

She proved to be but half ripe, but her size was held to atone for this defect. A small, unripe melon would have been returned to the dealer with loud complaining, but it seemed to be held that you couldn't expect everything from one of this magnitude. It was devoured to the rind, after which the convives reclined luxuriously upon a mound of excelsior beside an empty crate.

"Penny grabs!" cried the host with a fresh inspiration, and they cheered him.

One of the five volunteered to go for them and the money-drunken host confided the price of three of them to him. The messenger honorably returned, the pennygrabs were bisected with the new knife, and all of them but Merle smoked enjoyably. He, going back to his candy and lemon, admonished each and all that smoking would stunt their growth. It seemed not greatly to concern any of them. They believed Merle implicitly, but what cared they?

Now the messenger in buying the pennygrabs had gabbled wildly to another boy of the sensational expenditures under way, and this boy, though incredulous, now came to a point in the alley from which he could survey the fed group. The remains of the whale of a melon were there to convince him. They were trifling remains, but they sufficed, and the six fuming halves of pennygrabs were confirmatory. The scout departed rapidly, to return a moment later with two other boys. One of the latter led a dog.

The three newcomers, with a nice observance of etiquette, surveyed the revellers from a distance. Lacking decent provocation, they might not approach a group so plainly engaged upon affairs of its own--unless they went aggressively, and this it did not yet seem wise to do. The revellers became self-conscious under this scrutiny. They were moved to new displays of wealth.

"I smelled 'em cookin' bologna in the back room of Hire's butcher shop,"

remarked the bringer of the pennygrabs. "It smelt grand."

The pliant host needed no more. He was tinder to such a spark.

"Get a quarter's worth, Howard," and the slave bounded off, to return with a splendid rosy garland of the stuff, still warm and odorous.

Again the new knife of Merle was used. The now widely diffused scent of bologna reached the three watchers, and appeared to madden one of them beyond any restraint of good manners. He sauntered toward them, pretending not to notice the banquet until he was upon it. He was a desperate-appearing fellow--dark, saturnine, with a face of sullen menace.

"Give us a hunk," he demanded.

He should have put it more gently. He should have condescended a little to the amenities, for his imperious tone at once dried a generous spring of philanthropy. He was to regret this lack of a mere superficial polish that would have cost him nothing.

"Ho! Go buy it like we did!" retorted the host, crisply.

"Is that so?" queried the newcomer with rising warmth.

"Yes, sat's so!"

"Who says it's so?"

"I say it's so!"

This was seemingly futile; seemingly it got them nowhere, for the newcomer again demanded: "Is that so?"

They seemed to have followed a vicious circle. But in reality they were much farther along, for the mendicant had carelessly worked himself to a point where he could reach for the half circle of bologna still undivided, and the treasure was now s.n.a.t.c.hed from this fate by the watchful legal owner.

"Hold that!" he commanded one of his creatures, and rose quickly to his feet.

"Is that so?" repeated the unimaginative newcomer.

"Yes, that's so!" affirmed the Wilbur twin once again.

"I guess I got as much right here as you got!"

This was a shifty attempt to cloud the issue. No one had faintly questioned his right to be there.

"Ho! Gee, gosh!" snapped the Wilbur twin, feeling vaguely that this was irrelevant talk.

"Think you own this whole town, don't you?" demanded the aggressor.

"Ho! I guess I own it as much as what you do!"

The Wilbur twin knew perfectly that this was not the true issue, yet he felt compelled to accept it.

"For two beans I'd punch you in the eye."

"Oh, you would, would you?" Each of the disputants here took a step backward.

"Yes, I would, would you!" This was a try at mockery.

"Yes, you would not!"

"Yes, I would!"

"You're a big liar!"

The newcomer at this betrayed excessive rage.

"What's that? You just say that again!" He seemed unable to believe his shocked ears.