“Say, now, you got a lot of money for a little boy,” said Solly Gumble, not altogether at ease.  This might be a case of embezzlement such as he had before known among his younger patrons.  “You sure it’s yours—­yes?”

“Ho!” The Wilbur twin scorned the imputation.  He was not going to tell how he had earned this wealth, but the ease of his simple retort was enough for the practical psychologist before him.  “I could buy all the things in this store if I wanted to,” he continued, and waved a patronizing hand to the shelves.  “Give me two of those and two of those and one of them.”

Solly Gumble put the latest purchase in a paper bag.  Here was a patron worth conciliating.  The patron sauntered to the open door to eat of his provender with lordly ease in the sight of an envious world.  Calmly elate, on the cushion of advantage, he scanned the going and coming of lesser folk who could not buy at will of Solly Gumble.  His fortune had gone to his head, as often it has overthrown the reason of the more mature indigent.  It was thus his brother found him, and became instantly troubled at what seemed to be the insane glitter of his eyes.

He engulfed an entire chocolate mouse from his sticky left hand and with his right proffered the bag containing two of those and two of those and one of them.  Merle accepted the boon silently.  He was thrilled, yet distrustful.  Until now his had been the leading mind, but his power was gone.  He resented this, yet was sensible that no resentment must be shown.  His talent as a tactician was to be sorely tested.  He gently tried out this talent.

“Winona says you ought to come home to dinner.”

The magnate replied as from another world.

“I couldn’t eat a mouthful,” he said, and crowded a cocoanut cream into an oral cavity already distended by a chocolate mouse.

“She says, now, you should save your money and buy some useful thing with it,” again ventured the parasite.  It was the sign of a nicely sensed acumen that he no longer called it “our” money.

“Ho!  Gee, gosh!” spluttered the rich one, and that was all.

“What we going to have next?” demanded the wise one.

“I’ll have to think up something.”  He did not invite suggestions and none were offered.  Merle nicely sensed the arrogance of the newly rich.  “I know,” said the capitalist at length—­“candy in a lemon.”

“One for each?”

“Of course!” It was no time for petty economies.

Solly Gumble parted with two lemons and two sticks of spirally striped candy of porous fabric.  Then the moneyed gourmet dared a new flight.

“Two more sticks,” he commanded.  “You suck one stick down, then you put another in the same old lemon,” he explained.

“I must say!” exclaimed Merle.  It was a high moment, but he never used strong language.