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Copper Boom Discover the Ideal Online Casino Destination in Asia! This remark caused Mrs. Wopp to feel considerable uneasiness. She was morally certain that her Ebenezer in his shyness would make a muddle of the sale, so she hastened to offer a suggestion.,CHAPTER XVII.—A SAMPLE OF EBENEZER WOPP’S IRE.,Flags waved. In spite of Billy all shouted orders at once. The line was as serpentine as Bess’s snakes that she held high and wriggling above her snake-entwined head. Oh, she was a very realistic snake charmer! Buzz crowed and clapped his pudgy little hands; and the Lancasters’ small Chinese boy who pulled the baby’s car almost fell over himself laughing.,“It’s that Jake. He’s sich an ornery animule,” explained the boy, thus shamelessly vilifying a patient and much enduring character.,“My stomach’s crying so I’ll have to eat one more sandwich, Bouncer. It’s a shame when Billy isn’t here. I’ll give you half, old dog.”，A mile or two down the creek the searching party sought diligently for the little lost boy. Moses was in the lead. He had announced his adamant resolve to find St. Elmo, or perform the irrevocable feat of “bustin’.” He cherished an idea of his own as to the child’s whereabouts. A few weeks previously, on an all-day excursion, Moses had played pirates with St. Elmo and they had utilized a most delectable earthy cave for their game.，“O Billy!” Jean gasped, fear for the little, delicate girl in that eery place lending sympathy to her voice.，As Betty Wopp and Maria Mifsud, each holding a hand of St. Elmo, left the church, they were highly entertained by that small boy’s account of a “man named Jonah who had swallowed a dwate big fish called a whale.”“What new trick has Flash been up to?”

“Moses didn’t want to clip me Mar, but I thought ’twould be a ’provement to hev nice white eyebrows.” As Betty spoke one large tear rolled slowly down her cheek moistening in its course a small drop of blacking which Moses had overlooked in his cleansing operations, adding still more to the child’s grotesque appearance.,Fate led the trio to the theatre where Mr. Zalhambra was playing. Howard took his friends to a box and no sooner were they seated than he espied Nell and Betty.,“Right this way, ladies and gentlemen,” Bess called from the edge of the far terrace. “A dinner fit for the gods, ambrosia and nectar; gifts from Flora and Fornax! Come up to the garden of the gods and goddesses and feast together!”,The pianist took a long look at Nell who had been visibly affected by his playing. Misgivings that date back to Eden were leaping into life in his breast. He had been in love more times than he could count, but here was the girl after all. He began a Scherzo of his own composition. Youth gathering flowers at the open mouth of a volcano. The melody was born to live forever. He was a genius. Now Nell knew it and her soul worshipped genius. Howard Eliot was far from her thoughts as she listened to the enchanting chain of melodies that poured forth.,“Billy,” she called.,“That’s enough, Billy. Jimmy Dorr and George Packard are coming.” She was a sensible woman, yet she disliked to expose her boy to Jimmy’s caustic tongue. But Billy was equal to more than Jimmy.,“O Billy, it hurts the ears of my mind to hear you say those vulgar words.” May Nell, playing “man” for the first time in her life, looked up from the “rod of grade” that she was piling deftly with a broken shingle. The color from sun and exercise added much to her beauty. She was neither blowsy nor smudged like the other children, and her lawn frock was as spotless as in the morning.,As Isobel seated herself on the piano-stool in compliance with her father’s wishes, her white-flounced dress billowed up around her, reminding Moses, even in his chaotic state of mind, of the delicious creamy meringue on a lemon pie.,As he crashed again through the close-grown brush he almost forgot the ugly scene just enacted below. He had been sorry to leave Bouncer to come with the girls; now he was glad. It was good to be quite alone up there with Nature in her less familiar places. A dark ravine lured him. Well as he knew the mountain he had never explored this gorge. The delicate fragrance of wild azaleas greeted him; he could see their pale pink bloom tipping the tall trees that rose out of the chaparral forty or fifty feet above the stream that tinkled beneath them.,In spite of noise and heedlessness there was something fine and true about Billy; something that made old Bouncer whine when left behind; something that called the kittens to rub against his legs; that made the little children at school adore him, and men and women smile heartily when they greeted him. It was this mysterious something that brought a wan smile to the small tired face and tired eyes that looked confidingly into his blue ones. He lifted her carefully down from the carriage, and led her up the walk to where his mother and sister came to meet them.,CHAPTER II THE SATURDAY GANG,Mrs. Wopp had a request from Mrs. Williams. She, the requestor, was ill with a touch of “pewmonia,” as Mrs. Wopp afterward related, and would Mrs. Wopp the requestee oblige by taking her Sunday-school class for the following Sunday afternoon..