I happen to know that in a former existence he was never
even asked to write, though he always hoped he might be."
"I'm sorry if you like him, Uncle Maje, but I'm positive that Fatty
Budlow is not a boy I could _ever_ feel deeply for. I don't believe our
acquaintance will even ripen into friendship," and she looked with
profound eyes into the wondrous, opening future.
"Of course it won't," I said. "I might have known that. He will continue
through the ages to be an impossible boy. Miss Lansdale feels the same
way about him. Poor Fatty or Horsehead or whatever they call him stands
off and glares at her, and can't say his lesson when he catches her
eye--only he seldom does catch it, because she's so busy with other boys
of more spirit who crowd about her and snatch hair ribbons and sing 'My
lady sleeps' until no one else can."
"Do you know Fatty Budlow?" asked my surprised woman child of Miss
Lansdale. But that young woman only reached out one foot to point its
toe idly at a creeping green worm and turn its vagrant course. The toe
was by no means common-sense, and the heel was simply idiotic.
"Of course she knows him," I said; "she knows he would give his right
hand for her, which is a good deal under the circumstances, and she very
properly despises him for it.
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