Where is it? I'll get it, and
then we'll be off."
Mr. Bopp colored distressfully, looked up, looked down, and then
straight into the lad's face, saying simply,--
"Thank you; I haf no coat but one."
Dick opened his eyes, and was about opening his mouth also, for the
exit of some blunderingly good-natured reply, when a warning poke
from his sister restrained him, while Dolly, with the innocent
hypocrisy which is as natural to some women as the art of tying
bows, said, as she led the way out,--
"You see the worth of gymnastics, Dick, in this delightful
indifference to cold. I sincerely hope we may reach a like enviable
state of health, and look upon great-coats as effeminate, and
mufflers a weakness of the flesh. Do you think we shall, Mr. Bopp?"
He shook his head with a perceptible shiver as the keen north wind
smote him in the face, but answered, with a look half merry, half
sad,--
"It is not choice, but what you call necessitee, with me; and I
truly hope you may never haf to exercise to keep life in you when
you haf sold your coat to pay a doctor's bill, or teach the art of
laughing while your heart is heavy as one stone. You would not like
that, I think, yet it is good, too; for small things make much
happiness for me, and a kind word is often better than a rix
dollar."
There was something in the young man's tone and manner which touched
and won his hearers at once. Dolly secretly resolved to put an extra
blanket on his bed, and shower kind words upon him, while Dick
tucked him up in buffalo robes where he sat helplessly beaming down
upon the red hood at his side.
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