Caroline's chin quivered; Katy's position on the ladder was frankly
that of one who has paid for an orchestra-chair; Maggie had left the
cookies and stood grinning in the kitchen door; an aunt appeared in
an upper window.
One more clap, and the actor returned to life and left them, but
only for a moment. He was back again, erect and smiling, a small
wicker basket balanced on his paws. Marching sedately up to Maggie,
he paused, and glanced politely down at the basket, then up at her.
Flesh and blood could not resist him. Hastily tugging out from her
petticoat a bulging pocket-book, she deposited a dime in the basket;
the aunt, with extraordinary accuracy, dropped a five-cent piece
from the window; Katy mourned her distance from her own financial
center, and Caroline ran for her bank. It was a practical
mechanism, the top falling off at her onslaught with the ease of
frequent exercise, and she returned in time to slip six pennies
under the two hot cookies that Maggie had added to her first
contribution. At each tribute the terrier barked twice politely, and
only when there was no more to be hoped for did he trot off around
the corner of the house, the cookies swaying at a perilous angle
under his quivering nostrils.
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