“Git 'way, I tell you,” warned the latter with a superior air. To increase Jimmy's envy he continued: “Grown folks tries to see how nice they can be to chillens what's got the mumps. Aunt Minerva ain't been impedent to me to-day; she lemme do jest 'bout like I please; it sho' is one time you can make grown folks step lively.” He looked at Jimmy meditatively, “It sho' is a plumb pity you ain't a ol' chile like what I is an' can't have the mumps. Yo' ma 'd be skeered to spank you, skeered she 'd injuh yo' mumps. Don't you come any closter to me,” he again warned, “you too little to have 'em.”
“I'll give you five peewees if you'll lemme tech 'em so 's I can get 'em,” pleaded the younger boy.
Billy hesitated. “You mighty little--” he began.
“And my stoney,” said the other child eagerly.
“If you was a ol' little boy,” said Billy, “it wouldn't make no diffunce; I don't want to make yo' ma mad an' Aunt Minerva say for me to keep 'way f'om you anyhow, though I didn't make her no promises.”
“You're the stingiest Peter they is, William Hill,” he cried; “won't let nobody tech your old mumps. My cousin in Memphis's got the measles; you just wait till I get 'em.”
Jimmy thought he saw signs of his yielding.
“And I'll give you my china egg, too,” he quickly proposed.
“Well, jest one tech,” agreed Billy; “an' I ain't a-goin' to be 'sponsible neither,” and he poked out a swollen jaw for Jimmy to touch.
Ikey Rosenstein at this moment was spied by the two little boys as he was Walking jauntily by the gate.
“You better keep 'way f'om here, Goose-Grease,” Jimmy yelled at him; “you better get on the other side the street. Billy here's got the mumps an' he lemme tech 'em so's I can get 'em, so's my papa and mama'll lemme do just perzactly like I want to; but you're a Jew and Jews ain't got no business to have the mumps, so you better get 'way. I paid Billy 'bout a million dollars' worth to lemme tech his mumps,” he said proudly. “Get 'way; you can't have em.”
“What'll you take, Billy, to lemme get 'em?” he asked, his commercial spirit at once aroused.
“What'll you gimme?” asked he of the salable commodity, with an eye to a bargain.
Ikey pulled out a piece of twine and a blue glass bead from his pocket and offered them to the child with the mumps. These received a contemptuous rejection.