A startled look was succeeded by one that was unmistakably horror. Pinkey knocked over the box upon which he was sitting as he jumped from the table and tore the kitchen door open.
Wallie watched him wonderingly: "Tell you what I think of it!" Pinkey declared, returning. "I ain't got words--they ain't none in the dictionary. My Gawd! what is it made of?"
"Just biscuit crumbs and onions," said Wallie, colouring.
"Where did you keep 'em?"
Wallie pointed to the box on the floor in the corner.
Pinkey made a hideous grimace.
"Gimme a drink of water! Gimme a chew of tobacco! Gimme anything to take the taste of mouse out'n my mouth. Wallie," solemnly, "men have died fer less'n that in this country. If I thought you'd done that on purpose I'd slit your throat from ear to ear and leave you."
"I thought I was very particular and cut off everything that looked suspicious," said Wallie, meekly, "I must have missed something."
"You shore did! And," Pinkey demanded, "what might them horrors be on the platter? Them teeth are mighty familiar."
Wallie quavered: "Prairie-dog--I was experimenting to see if they were edible."
"Leave me out in the air again!" Pinkey groaned as he swallowed a drink of water. "And I passed up a turkey dinner to come and eat with you!"
"Shan't I cook you some bacon?" asked Wallie, contritely.
"I doubt if I ever feel like eatin' agin, but if the cake's thawed out I'll try a chunk of it to take my mind off that stuffin'."
Wallie opened the can of pineapple he had been treasuring and Pinkey helped himself freely to the Christmas cake.
"They must be about four meals in one of them slices, the way it feels inside of me," the latter commented, nibbling delicately on a ring of pineapple he held in his fingers.
"It's fruit-cake, and rich; you're not supposed to eat so much of it," Wallie said, sharply.
Pinkey raised his eyebrows and regarded Wallie attentively as he continued to nibble.
"Looks like you're turrible touchy about her cookin', and swelled up over gittin' a Christmas present," he remarked, finally. "You needn't be, because she made eight other cement bricks jest like this one and sent 'em around to fellers she's sorry for."
"Oh, did she!" Wallie ejaculated, crestfallen.
"Yes, indeed," Pinkey went on, complacently, feeling a glow of satisfaction at Wallie's lengthened countenance; "she does it every Christmas. She's kind to the pore and sufferin', but it don't mean nothin' more than a dollar she'd drop in a hat somebody was passin'."
Noting the deep gloom which immediately settled upon Wallie, Pinkey could think of the prairie-dogs with more equanimity.