Gray pondered this refusal for a moment before saying, "Perhaps you think I'm--trying to make a good impression on you, so you'll buy some diamonds?" "Mebbe." Buddy averted his eyes. He was in real distress. "Um-m! I ought to punch your head." Gray slipped the case into young Briskow's pocket. "I don't have to bribe people. Some day you'll realize that I like you." "_Honest?_" "Cross my heart." The boy laughed in frank delight, his brown cheeks colored, his eyes sparkled. "Gosh!" said he. "I--like _you!_" For some time thereafter he remained red and silent, but he kept one big hand in the pocket where lay the gold cigarette case. There was a wordless song in Buddy Briskow's heart, for--he had made a friend. And such a friend! The Briskow children possessed each other's fullest confidence, hence Ozark took the first occasion to show his gift to Allegheny, and to tell her in breathless excitement all about that wonderful afternoon. "He said he'd a mind to lick me, an' I bet he could 'a' done it, too," the boy concluded. "Lick you? Hunh!" "Oh, he's hard-boiled! That's why I like him. He's been 'round the world and speaks furrin language like a natif. That suit of clo's was _made_ for him, an' he's got thirty others, all better 'n this one. Shoes, too! Made special, in New York. Forty dollars a pair!" "What's he doin' here if he's so rich?" It was the doubting female of the species speaking. "Drummers is terrible liars." Buddy flew to the defense of his hero. "He's doin' this to he'p a friend. Told me all about it. I'm goin' to have thirty suits--" "Shoes don't cost forty dollars. _Clo's_ don't cost that much." Allie regarded her brother keenly, understandingly, then she said, somberly, "It ain't no use, Buddy." "What ain't?" "It ain't no use to wish. Mebbe you can have thirty suits--if the wells hold out, but they won't look like his. And me, too. We're too big, Buddy, an' the more money we got, the more clo's we put on, the more folks is goin' to laugh at us. It shames me to go places with anybody but you." "_He_ wouldn't laugh. He's been all over the world," the boy asserted. Then, after some deliberation, "I bet he's seen bigger people than us."