LONELY TELLS A STORY OR TWO
233
"Something about ghosts," suggested Jappie Barrison.
"You 've never seen one o' them have you?" demanded Pinkie.
Lonely looked around, apprehensively. There was no mistaking the fact that his glance meant to convey to them that it was a good thing it was broad daylight, and they were there all together on the Common.
"I had a ghost folly [1] me once," said Lonely, dropping his voice.
"Go on!" said Lionel Clarence.
Lonely shook his head disapprovingly.
"I don't like talkin' about that kind o'
- ↑ Lonely, I might here add, had in his vocabulary certain words all his own. Thus, he always said "folly?" for "follow." In the same way something always "snuk up on him;" a "drizzly day" was a "grizzly day" to him; he described the process of rinsing as "wrenching;" a "ripple" on the water was always a "riffle;" by "killdee," of course, he meant a "kill-deer;" and anything that was superlatively fine was always "slickery." Likewise, he was often heard to ejaculate: "Don't brandy words with me!" "Noise," to him, was always "noinse," "lightning" was "lightling," and his "shoulder" was invariably his "soldier." The word "vinegar" was hopelessly beyond him.
