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Lon listened with admirable gravity. He understood perfectly Sam’s frame of mind.

“Jesso, jesso!” he remarked sagely, when the tale was told. “Riled you all up, Sam, didn’t it? But I dunno’s there’s anything real fatal about it. The Grants are mighty nice folks—I know ’em. Fine place they’ve got over to Sugar Valley, too. And Mis’ Grant—she meant all right, only she didn’t realize, mebbe, that a boy’s more or less like a rabbit when it comes to public pettin’, and behaves accordin’. So, if you’d cut and run——”

“I couldn’t,” Sam explained hotly.

“Good thing you couldn’t. Same way when Mis’ Grant makes good with that mince pie——”

There Sam’s wrath exploded. He raged for a moment or two, Lon listening patiently.

“Well, it’ll be some mince pie,” he said at last, when the boy had paused for lack of breath. “If I was you, I wouldn’t be declinin’ it ahead o’ time and sight unseen. You can never tell, you know, how the thing may strike you when it happens. Maybe you’ll be hungry, and maybe you’ll feel like treatin’ that club of yours——”