"You villain!" cried Janet McFadden, unspeakably incensed at this fresh outrage. "You spit that nickel right out! Do you hear me?"
Willie Jones made no answer. His mouth was too tightly shut to answer.
Janet would have shaken him soundly, but Margery stopped her.
"Be careful, Janet, be careful! If he was to swallow it I never would get it back!"
Willie Jones's face lit up, and he nodded his head vigorously.
For a moment Janet McFadden was silent, then she laughed.
"All right; let him swallow it if he wants to! But if he does he'll turn green as grass and die of blood poison, won't he, Rosie?"
"You bet he will!" Miss O'Brien called up from below. "By this time to-morrow he'll be dead! Then the patrol wagon'll come for him, and they'll carry him off to the morgue like that Dago that dropped dead on our street. You remember about him, don't you, Janet?"
"Sure I do. He had earrings in his ears."
The earrings seemed to be too much for Willie Jones. The look of triumph slowly faded from his face.
"Go ahead, swallow it!" Janet McFadden gently urged. She waited a moment, then declared emphatically: "Well, if he won't swallow it he's got to spit it out; that's all there is about it! Here, Rosie, we're going to lay him down on his stummick, so you lift his legs up. He can't do a thing – I've got his arms."
Willie Jones struggled, apparently on principle, not surely with any conviction that his struggling would avail him. In a moment Janet had him down and placed to her liking. A crowd was gathering, so there was no time to lose.
"Now, then, Margery," Janet commanded, "quick! Grab his nose and hold it shut real tight! That'll make his mouth open if anything will."
This time Margery did her part without bungling, and in spite of the look of reproach that Willie gave her. His time was come. He held in as long as the human engine can, then exploded. The force of the explosion blew the nickel out of his mouth, and, lo, all Margery had to do was pick it up.
Thus the struggle ended.
Janet and the faithful Rosie, releasing their captive, jumped nimbly aside, and, amid the jeers of the onlookers, Willie Jones got slowly to his feet.
"Aw, shucks! You call that fair – three against one?"
Janet answered at once:
"I call anything fair when there's more on the girl's side!"
Turning her back on Willie Jones, Janet put an affectionate arm about Margery's shoulder.
"Are you going to spend your nickel, Margery?"
Margery thought she was.
"Candy?"
"Yes, I thought I'd get some candy. Do you and Rosie like jaw-breakers?"
Janet and Rosie both adored jaw-breakers.
"Is this a good place?" Margery asked, pointing to the little candy store near which they were standing.
Janet was horrified.
"I should say not! The jaw-breakers here are the weeniest little things! No. A little ways up the street there's another candy store that has jaw-breakers as big as eggs! They last at least an hour, don't they, Rosie? Come on, and I'll show you."
To their surprise, Willie Jones accompanied them. In spite of all that had occurred, he seemed still to consider himself an honored member of the group. Rosie O'Brien stared at him incredulously, and Janet McFadden, casting long-suffering eyes to the telegraph wires overhead, snorted out:
"Huh! The cheek of some people, coming along with you whether you ask them or not!"
The jaw-breakers at the second store were nearly as large as Janet had reported them. The mere sight of them made your mouth ache in delicious discomfort. To hold six of them Margery had to make a little basket of both hands. This basket she carefully carried outside, where she paused, ready to pass it around. To Janet's indignation, Willie Jones pressed forward as confident as any one, and Margery did not repulse him. In fact, in her own mind, Margery had already decided that she could afford to be magnanimous. So, to show how far she could rise above petty resentment, she was about to offer the jaw-breakers to Willie first of all, when suddenly his face took on an expression of overwhelming horror, and, pointing a startled finger over Margery's shoulder, he cried out:
"Oh, look!"
Every one, of course, looked, and while they were looking Willie Jones swooped down upon the unprotected jaw-breakers, grabbed as many as he could, and fled. While the others were still gazing stupidly at each other he disappeared around a corner.
Rosie O'Brien was the first to recover speech enough to gasp out:
"Well, what do you know about that?"
Janet McFadden, groaning in helpless rage, worked her arms up and down, clenched and unclenched her hands, and breathed hard.
"O-oh! Do you know – do you know – sometimes I get so mad that I'd just like to wring the neck of every boy in the world!"
Margery alone had nothing to say. She stooped to pick up the only two jaw-breakers that were left. These were on the pavement, for, in snatching, Willie had knocked them out of her hands.
"I – I don't believe I want any jaw-breakers to-day." Margery spoke with a slight quaver. "You – you two can have them."
She offered one to Rosie, but Rosie, instead of taking it, threw her arms impulsively about Margery's neck.
"You poor thing! That'd be nice, now, wouldn't it? And you not have even one of your own jaw-breakers! No! I just tell you what we'll do: You'll have one whole one for yourself, and me and Janet'll divide the other. I'll suck it for a block, and then Janet can suck it for a block."
This was the arrangement finally agreed upon.
"And wouldn't you like to come with us, Margery, while I finish up my paper route?"
Yes, Margery would just as soon do that as anything else.
Rosie petted and comforted her as best she could, teaching her how to wrap a paper that is to be thrown on a porch, explaining to her the scale of profits in the newspaper business, and giving her interesting bits of family history about the various houses where they stopped.
Had she been alone with Rosie, Margery would have been allowed to forget somewhat her recent troubles. In fact, she almost did forget them once or twice at moments when Janet McFadden was busy sucking the jaw-breaker. But the instant it became Rosie's turn to suck, Janet was back again on the old subject.
"Ha, ha! Don't you think I know 'em?" The 'em of Janet's acquaintance were, of course, Willie Jones and his kind. "Oh, I tell you, I know 'em just as well! They're all the same, every last one of them, always getting the best of us, and then going off by themselves and having a good time! I tell you, if I had my way, things'd be different! Oh, I tell you, if we'd all just get together and treat 'em like they ought to be treated, it – it – it – it'd be just good for 'em – it would!"
Of course, everything Janet said was gospel truth, and there was no gainsaying it; but even truth is sometimes depressing, and not the thing one wishes forever to have dinned into one's ears.
"And I know just as well as I know my own name, Margery, that now, after he's acted this way, he'll be coming back trying to make friends with you. You needn't tell me! I know him! But listen here, Margery, don't have a thing to do with him! Don't ever speak to him again, and pretend you don't even see him. He's not worth it – honestly he's not!"
When Margery parted from them later in the afternoon Janet made her solemnly promise that henceforward she would consider Willie Jones as dirt beneath her feet. It was neither the time nor the place for Margery to ask herself whether she really wished to make such a promise, for, in the presence of so fiery an apostle of female rights, her private inclinations simply shriveled to fine ashes and blew away.
"Of course," murmured Margery meekly, "of course I'll never speak to him again."
"That's right!" Janet declared. "He don't deserve it."
"And say, Margery," Rosie O'Brien begged, in parting, "come down to East Maplewood again some afternoon, won't you? I start on my paper route at half past three – you know where. I'd love to have you come again."
"I'll come if I can, Rosie – honest, I will. Both of you have been just as nice to me! Good-by."
Margery trudged homeward, feeling tired and a little down-hearted. Janet McFadden was entirely right: Willie Jones was a villain and a rogue. But, even so, wasn't it rather a pity to end things forever, after all the good times they had once had together? Dear, dear! In a maleless world, justice to ladies would no doubt prevail; but, alas, alas, in such a world the ladies who enjoy male society would probably feel a bit lonesome.
"Say, Margery, hold on a minute!"
The voice was unmistakable, but Margery did not turn her head.
"Say, Margery, I'm awfully sorry – honest, I am. I was only fooling."
There he was, just as Janet said he would be. Janet knew. So far as Margery herself was concerned, she would just as soon make friends, but she had promised Janet, and she must keep her word. Heigho!
"And lookee here, Margery, here are all your jaw-breakers. I ain't et one – honest, I ain't."
Margery looked, and, lo, in his hand lay four jaw-breakers, three of them as black and shiny as the moment they had left the little candy store, the fourth sucked down only to the pink.