He knew where to go, and, by help of street-cars and other legs than his own, he was there speedily.  He knew the very room towards which to turn; and, reaching it, paused to look in through the half-open door,—­delighted thus to watch and listen for a little space unseen.

Sallie was sitting, her handsome head bent over her sewing,—­Frankie gambolling about the floor.

“O sis, don’t you wish Jim would come home?” queried the youngster.  “I do,—­I wish he’d come right straight away.”

“Right straight away?  What do you want to see Jim for?”

“O, ’cause he’s nice; and ’cause he’ll take me to the Theayter; and ’cause he’ll treat,—­apples, and peanuts, and candy, you know, and—­and—­ice-cream,” wiping the beads from his little red face,—­the last desideratum evidently suggested by the fiery summer heat.  “I say, Sallie!”—­a pause—­“won’t you get me some ice-cream this evening?”

“Yes, Bobbity, if you’ll be a good boy.”

Frankie looked dubious over that proposition.  Jim never made any such stipulations:  so, after another pause, in which he was probably considering the whole subject with due and becoming gravity,—­evidently desiring to hear his own wish propped up by somebody else’s seconding,—­he broke out again, “Now, Sallie, don’t you just wish Jim would come home?”

“O Frankie, don’t I?” cried the girl, dropping her work, and stretching out her empty arms as though she would clasp some shape in the air.

Frankie, poor child! innocently imagining the proffered embrace was for him, ran forward, for he was an affectionate little soul, to give Sallie a good hug, but found himself literally left out in the cold; no arms to meet, and no Sallie, indeed, to touch him.  Something big, burly, and blue loomed up on his sight,—­something that was doing its best to crush Sallie bodily, and to devour what was not crushed; something that could say nothing by reason of its lips being so much more pleasantly engaged, and whose face was invisible through its extraordinary proximity to somebody else’s face and hair.

Frankie, finding he could gain neither sight nor sound of notice, began to howl.  But as neither of the hard-hearted creatures seemed to care for the poor little chap’s howling, he fell upon the coat-tails of the big blue obstruction, and pulled at them lustily,—­not to say viciously,—­till their owner turned, and beheld him panting and fiery.

“Helloa, youngster! what’s to pay now?”

“Wow! if ’tain’t Jim.  Hooray!” screeched the youngster, first embracing the blue legs, and then proceeding to execute a dance upon his head.  “Te, te, di di, idde i-dum,” he sang, coming feet down, finally.

Evidently the bad boy’s language had been corrupted by his street confreres; it was a missionary ground upon which Sallie entered, more or less faithfully, every day to hoe and weed; but of this last specimen-plant she took no notice, save to laugh as Jim, catching him up, first kissed him, then gave him a shake and a small spank, and, thrusting a piece of currency into his hand, whisked him outside the door with a “Come, shaver, decamp, and treat yourself to-day,” and had it shut and fastened in a twinkling.