“Spent all our money!” declaimed Merle in a public-school voice, using “our” for the first time since his defeat of the morning.  Certain of Winona’s support, it had again become their money.  “And cursing, swearing, fighting, smoking!”

“Oh, Wilbur!” exclaimed the shocked Winona; yet there was dismay more than rebuke in her tone, for she had brought the album to view.  “If you’ve been a bad boy perhaps I should not accept this lovely gift from you.  Remember—­we don’t yet know how you obtained all this money.”

“Ho!  I earned that money good!  That old fat Mr. Whipple said I earned it good.  He said he wouldn’t of done what I done——­”

“Did, dear!”

“—­wouldn’t of did what I did for twice the money.”

“And what was it you did?”

Winona spoke gently, as a friend.  But Wilbur rubbed one bare foot against and over the other.  He was not going to tell that shameful thing, even to these people.

“Oh, I didn’t do much of anything,” he muttered.

“But what was it?”

The judge interrupted.

“It says half a wineglassful before meals.  Daughter, will you bring me the wineglass?”

The Pennimans kept a wineglass.  The judge found a corkscrew attached to the bottle, and sipped his draft under the absorbed regard of the group.  “It feels like it might give some temporary relief,” he admitted, savoring the last drops.

“You go right down to the drug store and look at that picture; you’ll see then what it’ll do for you,” urged the donor.

“What else did the Whipples say to you?” wheedled Winona.

The Wilbur twin again hung embarrassed.

“Well—­well, there’s a cruel stepmother, but now she wasn’t cruel to me.  She said I was a nice boy, and gave me back my pants.”

“Gave you back—­”

Winona enacted surprise.

“I had to have my pants, didn’t I?  I couldn’t go out without any, could I?  And she took me to a pantry and give me a big hunk of cake with raisins in it, and a big slice of apple pie, and a big glass of milk.”

“I must say!  And she never gave me a thing!” Merle’s bitterness grew.

“And she kissed me twice, and—­and said I was a nice boy.”

“You already said that,” reminded the injured brother.

“And she didn’t act cruel to me once, even if she is a stepmother.”

“But how did you come to be without your——­”

Wilbur was again reprieved from her grilling.  The Penniman cat, Mouser, a tawny, tigerish beast, had leaped to the porch.  With set eyes and quivering tail it advanced crouchingly, one slow step at a time, noiseless, sinister.  Only when poised for its final spring upon the helpless prey was it seen that Mouser stalked the blue jay on its perch.  Wilbur, with a cry of alarm, snatched the treasure from peril.  Mouser leaped to the porch railing to lick her lips in an evil manner.