"Say, bo, yer don't want to do de bashful--see?--'cause me 'n' you is
gents what understands de game er chanst. Here--take holt an' chaw
yerse'f off a hunk!"
The aristocrat hesitated, then slid down one rung on the ladder of
degradation--pushed by blood-lust and by the strange compelling
_camaraderie_ of an arab of the streets. It was wrong, he knew, but then
there was a certain flavor in this wrong; so, gingerly, he crossed the
geranium-bed, took one web foot firmly between his teeth, and wondered at
the thrill of life that sparked and snapped along his spine. Then Pete
and Omar Ben tugged and tugged, till the clean geranium-bed was a
comfortable, wholesome wreck.
"Hully gee!" grinned Ringtail Pete. "We otter make a wish!"
They made it, and the metaphoric wish-bone parted with a jerk, Omar Ben
rolling upon his lordly back in the healthy dirt; but he rose and
devoured his frog-leg to its smallest bone, wishing with all his heart
that the frog had been a bigger frog. Then he licked his chops and looked
in admiration on his worldly friend.
"Thank you, _so_ much," he began, but the arab waved formality aside.
"Aw, 't wan't nuttin'," he declared, "an' dey tastes a darn sight better
when yer wades fer 'em.
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