Page:Jean Webster--Much ado about Peter.djvu/101

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DIGNITY AND THE ELEPHANT
93

him into the middle o' next week. 'Gallant work o' Chief McDougal.' Bloomin' lobster in a rubber helmet. I'll teach him his dooty if I ever ketch him out alone. It was me as saved the buckboard an' all the tools, an' Master Augustus in the bargain—wish I'd let him burn, I do. 'An',' says Mr. Carter, 'do ye think it consonant wid the dignity o' me position,' he says, 'that me son should be painted with axle grease—me—the Honourable Jerome B. Carter, Esquire?' His dignity! Take away his money an' his dignity, an' there wouldn't be enough of him left to fill a half-pint measure. I 'll get it back at him; you see if I don't. I risks me life and I burns me best pants, an' that's all the thanks I get!"


A week had passed over Willowbrook. The charred ruins of the waggon-shed had been carted to the barnyard; the Comanche braves had become white again—though in the course of it they had lost a layer of skin—and the