," moaned he.

"You can't make me believe those mean little wooden tricks are worth any
thousand dollars!" volleyed Peggy; nevertheless, her heart beat
faster,--grown people are so queer. "Are you sure she meant _them_?
Maybe it was those things in the next glass case; they're her own
things! They're some kind of Chinese china and cost a heap." Peggy's
sturdy womanly wits were rising from the shock.

"And the show-case is broked!" sniffed Johnny-Ivan, gulping down a sob.

"It ain't broke, it's only cracked; 'sides, it was cracked a right smart
befo'!"

"But this was a new place--I know, 'cause I cut my finger on the other,
scraping it over."

"Well, anyhow, I reckon it didn't be much value," Peggy insisted.

"I saw that young lady come back,"--Johnny-Ivan had switched on to a new
track leading to grisly possibilities--"maybe _she'll_ find it!"

"Well, we're gone, all right."

Peggy gave an unprincipled giggle; "Maybe she'll think it was _him_."

"Then we _got_ to tell," moaned Johnny.

"No, we ain't. He'll run off and so she won't ask him questions."

"But she'll _think_ it's him. It'll be mean."

"No it won't."

"It's mean to have somebody else take your blame or your punishment;
mamma said so."

The small casuist was too discreet to attack Johnny's oracle; she only
pouted her pretty lips and quibbled:

"'Tain't mean if the people who get blamed are mean themselves--like
him. I don't care _how_ blamed he gets; I wouldn't care if he got
licked."

But Johnny's conscience was not so elastic. "I don't care, either," he
protested. "I--I wouldn't care if he was _deaded_"--anxious to
propitiate--"but it would be mean just the same. I got to tell papa,
Peggy, I truly have."

Peggy grew very cross. "You are just the foolest, obsternatest little
boy I ever did see," she grumbled; "you're a plumb idiot! I'd like to
slap you! Your papa'll be awful mad."

Johnny-Ivan essayed an indifferent mien, but his eyes were miserable.

"Say, Jo'nivan,"--her voice sank to a whisper that curdled his
blood--"were you ever spanked?"

"Only Hilma sorter kinder--not really _spanking_, you know," confessed
Johnny with a toss of his head. "I just made faces at her; I didn't
cry!" he bragged.

"Never your mamma or your papa?"

"Course not," said Johnny with a haughty air; "but, Peggy," he said very
low, "were you--did--"

"Oh, my, yes! Mammy did when I was little. I'm too big now."

"I'm too big, too, now, ain't I?"