"I suppose so. I don't recollect. Have you seen one around?"
Perry almost changed color. "No, sir—that is—I just wondered whether they wore false mustaches."
"Now, Perry Hull, what sort of nonsense have you been reading?" inquired his mother. "Some of the books you get out of the library aren't fit for any boy; all about fighting and Indians and—and now it's burglars, I dare say! I don't see when you have time for reading, anyway, with all those lessons to study. Your report card last month wasn't anything to boast of, either."
"It was all right except math.," defended Perry. "Gee, if you think my card was punk, you ought to see some of them!"
"I didn't say anything about 'punk,'" retorted Mrs. Hull with dignity. "And I'd like to know where you get all the horrid words you use lately. I dare say it's that Shaw boy. He looks rather common, I think."
"There, there, Mother, don't scold him any more," said the Doctor soothingly. "Slang's harmless enough. Have a slice of lamb, son?"
Perry dutifully passed his plate and consumed the lamb, not because he had any appetite for it
but in order to allay his mother's suspicions of ill-
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