Jimmy grew angry.

“You’re the stingiest Peter they is, William Hill,” he cried; “won’t let nobody tech your old mumps.  My cousin in Memphis’s got the measles; you just wait till I get ’em.”

Billy eyed him critically.

“If you was ol’—­” he was beginning.

Jimmy thought he saw signs of his yielding.

“And I’ll give you my china egg, too,” he quickly proposed.

“Well, jest one tech,” agreed Billy; “an’ I ain’t a-goin’ to be ’sponsible neither,” and he poked out a swollen jaw for Jimmy to touch.

Ikey Rosenstein at this moment was spied by the two little boys as he was Walking jauntily by the gate.

“You better keep ’way f’om here, Goose-Grease,” Jimmy yelled at him; “you better get on the other side the street.  Billy here’s got the mumps an’ he lemme tech ’em so’s I can get ’em, so’s my papa and mama’ll lemme do just perzactly like I want to; but you’re a Jew and Jews ain’t got no business to have the mumps, so you better get ’way.  I paid Billy ‘bout a million dollars’ worth to lemme tech his mumps,” he said proudly.  “Get ’way; you can’t have em.”

Ikey had promptly stopped at the gate.

“What’ll you take, Billy, to lemme get ’em?” he asked, his commercial spirit at once aroused.

“What’ll you gimme?” asked he of the salable commodity, with an eye to a bargain.

Ikey pulled out a piece of twine and a blue glass bead from his pocket and offered them to the child with the mumps.  These received a contemptuous rejection.

“You can do perzactly like you please when you got the mumps,” insinuated Jimmy, who had seemingly allied himself with Billy as a partner in business; “grown folks bound to do what little boys want ’em to when you got the mumps.”

Ikey increased his bid by the stub of a lead pencil, but it was not until he had parted with his most cherished pocket possessions that he was at last allowed to place a gentle finger on the protuberant cheek.

Two little girls with their baby-buggies were seen approaching.

“G’ ’way from here, Frances, you and Lina,” howled Jimmy.  “Don’t you come in here; me and Billy’s got the mumps and you-all ‘r’ little girls and ought n’ to have ’em.  Don’t you come near us; they ’re ketching.”

The two little girls immediately opened the gate, crossed the yard, mid stood in front of Billy.  They inspected him with admiration; he bore their critical survey with affected unconcern and indifference, as befitted one who had attained such prominence.

“Don’t tech ’em,” he commanded, waving them off as he leaned gracefully against the fence.

“I teched ’em,” boasted the younger boy.  “What’ll you all give us if we Il let you put your finger on ’em?”

“I ain’t a-goin’ to charge little girls nothin’,” said the gallant Billy, as he proffered his swollen jowl to each in turn.

A little darkey riding a big black horse was galloping by; Jimmy hailed and halted him.