sles; you
just wait till I get 'em."
Billy eyed him critically.
"If you was ol'--" he was beginning.
Jimmy thought he saw signs of his yielding.
"And I'll give you my china egg, too," he quickly proposed.
"Well, jest one tech," agreed Billy; "an' I ain't a-goin' to be
'sponsible neither," and he poked out a swollen jaw for Jimmy to touch.
Ikey Rosenstein at this moment was spied by the two little boys as he
was Walking jauntily by the gate.
"You better keep 'way f'om here, Goose-Grease," Jimmy yelled at him;
"you better get on the other side the street. Billy here's got the mumps
an' he lemme tech 'em so's I can get 'em, so's my papa and mama'll lemme
do just perzactly like I want to; but you're a Jew and Jews ain't got no
business to have the mumps, so you better get 'way. I paid Billy 'bout
a million dollars' worth to lemme tech his mumps," he said proudly. "Get
'way; you can't have em."
Ikey had promptly stopped at the gate.
"What'll you take, Billy, to lemme get 'em?" he asked, his commercial
spirit at once aroused.
"What'll you gimme?" asked he of the salable commodity, with an eye to a
bargain.
Ikey pulled out a piece of twine and a blue glass bead from his
pocket and offered them to the child with the mumps. These received a
contemptuous rejection.
"You can do perzactly like you please when you got the mumps,"
insinuated Jimmy, who had seemingly allied himself with Billy as a
partner in business; "grown folks bound to do what little boys want 'em
to when you got the mumps."
Ikey increased his bid by the stub of a lead pencil, but it was not
until he had parted with his most cherished pocket possessions that he
was at last allowed to place a gentle finger on the protuberant cheek.
Two little girls with their baby-buggies were seen approaching.
"G' 'way from here, Frances, you and Lina," howled Jimmy. "Don't you
come in here; me and Billy's got the mumps and you-all 'r' little girls
and ought n' to have 'em. Don't you come near us; they 're ketching."
The two little girls immediately opened the gate, crossed the yard, mid
stood in front of Billy. They inspected him with admiration; he bore
their critical survey with affected unconcern and indifference, as
befitted one who had attained such prominence.
"Don't tech 'em," he commanded, waving them off as he leaned gracefully
against the fence.
"I teched 'em," boasted the younger boy. "What'll you all give us if we
Il let you p
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