he "he"
referred to by Toby.
"Who do you mean?" asked the man, impatiently.
"Why, the old feller; the one in the cart there. I think he knew I was
runnin' away, though he didn't say anything about it; but he looked just
as if he did."
The driver looked at Toby in perfect amazement for a moment, and then,
as if suddenly understanding the boy, relapsed into one of those
convulsive efforts that caused the blood to rush up into his face, and
gave him every appearance of having a fit.
"You must mean one of the monkeys," said the driver, after he had
recovered his breath, which had been almost shaken out of his body by
the silent laughter. "So you thought a monkey had told me what any fool
could have seen if he had watched you for five minutes."
"Well," said Toby, slowly, as if he feared he might provoke one of those
terrible laughing spells again, "I saw him to-night, an' he looked as if
he knew what I was doin'; so I up an' told him, an' I didn't know but
he'd told you, though he didn't look to me like a feller that would be
mean."
There was another internal shaking on the part of the driver, which Toby
did not fear so much, since he was getting accustomed to it, and then
the man said, "Well, you are the queerest little cove I ever saw."
"I s'pose I am," was the reply, accompanied by a long-drawn sigh. "I
don't seem to amount to so much as the other fellers do, an' I guess
it's because I'm always hungry; you see, I eat awful, Uncle Dan'l says."
The only reply which the driver made to this plaintive confession was to
put his hand down into the deepest recesses of one of his deep pockets,
and to draw therefrom a huge doughnut, which he handed to his companion.
Toby was so much at his ease by this time that the appetite which had
failed him at supper had now returned in full force, and he devoured the
doughnut in a most ravenous manner.
"You're too small to eat so fast," said the man, in a warning tone, as
the last morsel of the greasy sweetness disappeared, and he fished up
another for the boy. "Some time you'll get hold of one of the
India-rubber doughnuts that they feed to circus people, an' choke
yourself to death."
Toby shook his head, and devoured this second cake as quickly as he had
the first, craning his neck, and uttering a funny little squeak as the
last bit went down, just as a chicken does when he gets too large a
mouthful of dough.
"I'll never choke," he said, confidently: "I'm used to
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