nybody."

"Not even to a woman?" she questioned incredulously.

"No," he answered positively, "I'm sure he wouldn't."

"And why wouldn't he?" she asked.

"Well," Skinny replied, "for one thing he don't give a darn. Th'
Ramblin' Kid don't care what anybody, man, woman or anything else thinks
about him or whether they like what he says or not so there ain't any
use of him lying. Maybe he wouldn't tell what was in his mind unless you
asked him, but if you did ask him he'd say what it was whether he
thought it satisfied you or not. He's funny that way. He just naturally
don't seem to be built for telling lies and he wouldn't do it--"

"Oh, Skinny, poor simple Skinny!" Carolyn June laughed. "You don't know
men--men when they're dealing with women! Through all the unnamed years
of my life I've never found one man who was absolutely truthful when
talking with a 'female.' They think they have to lie to women. They do
it either to keep from hurting them--or else they do it intentionally
for the purpose of hurting them, one or the other! And they are so
stupid! No man can hide anything long from a woman--"

Reaching over she jerked a spray of tiny roses from the rambler at the
window near which they were standing; tapping the blossoms against her
lips, beginning to smile whimsically, she continued: "Why, I can almost
read your own thoughts right now! If I wanted to I could tell you more
about what is in your mind than you yourself could tell--"

"Could you?" Skinny said, a guilty look coming in his eyes.

"For one thing," Carolyn June went on, ignoring the inane question, "you
are in love--"

"I ain't!" the over-hasty denial slipped from his lips unintentionally.

"Lie!" she laughed, "you can't help telling 'em, can you? And you are
thinking--" She paused while her eyes rested demurely on the roses in
her hand.

"What am I thinking?" Skinny asked breathlessly.

Before she could reply an agonized spitting, yowling and hissing,
accompanied by the rattle of tin, came from behind the kitchen. "What's
that?" Carolyn June cried half frightened at the instant a yellow house
cat, his head fastened in an old tomato can, came bouncing backward,
clawing and scratching, from around the corner.

"Gee whiz!" Skinny exclaimed, "it's that darned cat again--Sing Pete
goes and dabs butter in the bottoms of the cans and the fool cat sticks
his head in trying to lick it out and gets fastened. It looks like the
blamed idiot would learn