Once as he sat there he thought he heard a rustling in the hedge behind him or the branches above, and looked around. But nothing was in sight. A locomotive whistled somewhere below as it passed. The trees, however, cut off his view of the railroad. In fact, from where he sat not even the river could be glimpsed, and he thought vaguely that he would like it better later on when the leaves were off and a fellow could see something. He was accustomed to wide views at home and the trees and hedges and shrubs were beginning to pall on him. He felt so sort of shut in. He finished the last of the chocolate and sighed again, this time with repletion. Then he rolled the tin-foil into a small and glittering ball, lifted his hand to toss it away――――
“Was it good?” asked a voice behind him. And,
“Don’t throw it in the street,” warned another voice.
Rodney, startled, whisked around. On either side of the narrow gate was a square wooden post terminating in a flat top. On either post sat a girl. Rodney’s surprise turned to bewilderment as his glance swept from one side of the gate to the other. Each member of his unsuspected audience wore a white middy suit trimmed with red, each had yellow-brown hair, each sat with crossed feet, hands folded in lap, looking calmly down upon him; in short one was so startlingly like the other that for a moment Rodney thought he was seeing double.
“It’s all right. There really are two of us,” announced the first speaker reassuringly. “You see, we’re twins.”
“Oh!” said Rodney. “I――I should think you were!”
“We were watching you,” replied the left-hand twin with a smile.
“Watching you eat your chocolate,” added the right-hand twin. At least, reflected Rodney, relieved, their voices were different; and, yes, when you looked closer you saw that, whereas the left-hand twin had very blue eyes, the right-hand twin’s eyes were almost black. And perhaps the latter’s nose was a little bit straighter. But for the rest――Rodney wondered how their mother told them apart.
“You were mighty quiet about it,” he commented a trifle indignantly. “It isn’t nice to sneak up and watch folks behind their backs.”
He discovered that he was still holding the wad of tin-foil in his hand and again started to toss it away.