When the meaning of his words struck home they looked at each other in dismay, then, bred as they were to mask emotion, they joined hands and trudged silently back up the bank with filling eyes and chins a-quiver until they gained the rear of the house.

Here they sat down all forlorn, and began to weep bitterly and in an ascending crescendo.
"What's the matter with you tikes, anyhow ?" inquired the Lieutenant.

He had always filled them with a speechless awe, and at his unexpected appearance they began the slow and painful process of swallowing their grief.

He was a nice man, they had both agreed long ago, and very splendid to the eye, but he was nothing like Poleon, who was one of them, only somewhat bigger.
"Come, now! Tell me all about it," the soldier insisted.

"Has something happened to the three-legged puppy ?" Molly denied the occurrence of any such catastrophe.
"Then you've lost the little shiny rifle that shoots with air ?" But Johnny dispelled this horrible suspicion by drawing the formidable weapon out of the grass behind him.
"Well, there isn't anything else bad enough to cause all this outlay of anguish.