"No," said the boy.

"Ef I was to ask you," continued Johnson, without heeding the reply, but
with a growing anxiety of eye and a nervous twitching of his lips,--"ef
I was to ask you, fur instance, ef that was a jackass rabbit thet jest
passed,--eh?--you'd say it was or was not, ez the case may be. You
wouldn't play the ole man on thet?"

"No," said Tommy, quietly, "it WAS a jackass rabbit."

"Ef I was to ask you," continued Johnson, "ef it wore, say, fur
instance, a green hat with yaller ribbons, you wouldn't play me, and say
it did, onless,"--he added, with intensified cunning,--"onless it DID?"

"No," said Tommy, "of course I wouldn't; but then, you see, IT DID."

"It did?"

"It did!" repeated Tommy, stoutly; "a green hat with yellow
ribbons--and--and--a red rosette."

"I didn't get to see the ros-ette," said Johnson, with slow and
conscientious deliberation, yet with an evident sense of relief; "but
that ain't sayin' it warn't there, you know. Eh?"

Tommy glanced quietly at his companion. There were great beads of
perspiration on his ashen-gray forehead and on the ends of his lank
hair; the hand which twitched spasmodically in his was cold and clammy,
the other, which was free, had a vague, purposeless, jerky activity, as