h red stockings, which displayed his poor little spindle-shanks;
he also wore a brilliant red cravat. He carried in his hand a long
alpenstock, the sharp point of which he thrust into everything that
he approached--the flowerbeds, the garden benches, the trains of the
ladies' dresses. In front of Winterbourne he paused, looking at him with
a pair of bright, penetrating little eyes.

"Will you give me a lump of sugar?" he asked in a sharp, hard little
voice--a voice immature and yet, somehow, not young.

Winterbourne glanced at the small table near him, on which his coffee
service rested, and saw that several morsels of sugar remained. "Yes,
you may take one," he answered; "but I don't think sugar is good for
little boys."

This little boy stepped forward and carefully selected three of
the coveted fragments, two of which he buried in the pocket of his
knickerbockers, depositing the other as promptly in another place. He
poked his alpenstock, lance-fashion, into Winterbourne's bench and tried
to crack the lump of sugar with his teeth.

"Oh, blazes; it's har-r-d!" he exclaimed, pronouncing the adjective in a
peculiar manner.

Winterbourne had immediately perceived that he might have the honor
of claiming him as a fellow countryman. "Take care you don't hurt your
teeth," he said, paternally.

"I haven't got any teeth to hurt. They have all come out. I have only
got seven teeth. My mother counted them last night, and one came out
right afterward. She said she'd slap me if any more came out. I can't
help it. It's this old Europe. It's the climate that makes them come
out. In America they didn't come out. It's these hotels."

Winterbourne was much amused. "If you eat three lumps of sugar, your
mother will certainly slap you," he said.

"She's got to give me some candy, then," rejoined his young
interlocutor. "I can't get any candy here--any American candy. American
candy's the best candy."

"And are American little boys the best little boys?" asked Winterbourne.

"I don't know. I'm an American boy," said the child.

"I see you are one of the best!" laughed Winterbourne.

"Are you an American man?" pursued this vivacious infant. And then,
on Winterbourne's affirmative reply--"American men are the best," he
declared.

His companion thanked him for the compliment, and the child, who had
now got astride of his alpenstock, stood looking about him, while he
attacked a second lump of sugar. Winterbourne wondered if h