Of course I want to spend my nickel! And I want to spend it myself,
too. I don't want no one else to spend it for me."

Willie lounged up to the window of a bakery shop.

"Jiminy, those cakes do look good!" He turned to her blandly. "Say,
Margery, do you want me to buy some cakes?"

"No, I don't want you to buy some cakes! All I want is my nickel."

Willie sighed, and went back to the cakes. The longer he looked the
hungrier he became. He sighed again.

"I just guess I'll have to buy some cakes--that's all there is about it.
You can wait out here for me, Margery."

But Margery did not care to wait for him outside. Bakery shops sometimes
have back doors that let out on little alleys. So Margery said:

"I think I'll just go in with you, Willie."

Willie knew the cakes he wanted, but, being a wary trader, he priced
other kinds first.

"Them's two for a nickel," the German lady behind the counter told him,
"and them's a cent apiece--ten cents a dozen. Oh, them's real
expensive--five cents apiece."

Finally he pointed to the objects of his choice. They were long, thick,
yellow cakes, fancifully encrusted with chocolate.

"Three for a nickel," the German lady said.

Willie sighed so hopelessly that the German lady relented.

"By rights, they're three for a nickel, but I tell you what I'll do:
I'll make 'em to you a cent apiece. But you mustn't tell no one."

Willie promised he wouldn't, and bought two. In payment he offered the
German lady a dime. Margery looked significantly at the change as the
German lady counted it out; but Willie quite mechanically slipped it all
into his pocket.

The German lady beamed on them kindly.

"Say, yous two can sit down at one of them little tables, if yous want
to, and eat your cakes. By rights, only ten-cent orders can sit down,
but I'll let yous this time."

"Thank you," Willie Jones said politely. "That'll be much nicer."

So they sat them down at an ice-cream table, and Willie at once
proffered Margery his open bag.

"Don't you want a cake?"

In one sense Margery did want a cake, but under the circumstances she
deemed it wise not to humor her appetite. So she said:

"No, thanks; I'm not hungry."

Willie gallantly urged, but Margery was firm, and at length he was
forced to begin alone.

He ate with zest. Gazing at him, Margery had time to ask herself what in
the world was possessing him to act so. If that nickel were owing to
Henry, or to Freddy Larkin, or, in