the
dark! "Why, yes, Mrs. Kukor!" he cried. "My goodness! This is a reg'lar
one!" (At which One-Eye colored, blending his bronze with a bashful
purple.)

"A cowpoy!" whispered Mrs. Kukor, as if in a daze. "Pos-i-tivvle! Mit
furs on hiss pants, und everythink!"

CHAPTER XII

A PRODIGAL PUFFED UP

LEANING on his well elbow, Johnnie related to Mrs. Kukor and Cis and
Grandpa the whole story of what had happened to him; and they paid such
rapt attention to him that at the most they did not interrupt him more
than fifteen or twenty times. "And, oh, didn't everything turn out just
fine?" he cried in ending. "T' be found by a cowboy and fetched home in
a' auto! and--all?"

Mrs. Kukor vowed that she dass-ent to deny how everytink about it wass
both stylish und grand!

Next, he had to hear what had transpired after his departure; how every
one had taken his going, especially Big Tom--now gone out to escort
One-Eye to the taxi.

"I tells to him, 'Sure does Chonnie go for sometink'," declared Mrs.
Kukor. But Barber had known better, and contradicted her violently. "Und
so I tells to him over that, 'Goot! Goot! if he runs away! In dis house
so much, it ain't healthy for him!' Und I shakes my fingers be-front of
hiss big nose!"

Mrs. Kukor had to go then, remembering with a start that she had a
filled fish cooking. She rushed out at a thumping gallop. Then the whole
adventure was told a second time, Johnnie sitting up with Grandpa's hat
cocked over one eye, and drawling in fine imitation of their late guest.

When Barber came back, he was not able to let matters pass without a
brief scolding for Johnnie, and a threat. "Y' go and git yourself laid
up," he complained, coming to stand over the pallet on the floor; "so's
you can't do your work, and earn your keep. Well, a good kick was the
right pay for runnin' away. And now let me tell y' this, and I mean it:
if y' ever run away again, y' won't git took _back_. Hear me?"

"Yes," answered Johnnie, almost carelessly.

Barber said no more, realizing that if Johnnie could run away once he
could again. Even without grumbling the longshoreman helped Cis to put
the wash to soak in the round, galvanized tub that stood on its side
under the dish cupboard--a Sunday night duty that was Johnnie's, and was
in preparation for the hated laundry work which he always did so badly
of a Monday.

Late that night, in the closet-room, with the door shut and a stub of
candle lighted,