One of the five volunteered to go for them and the money-drunken host confided the price of three of them to him.  The messenger honorably returned, the pennygrabs were bisected with the new knife, and all of them but Merle smoked enjoyably.  He, going back to his candy and lemon, admonished each and all that smoking would stunt their growth.  It seemed not greatly to concern any of them.  They believed Merle implicitly, but what cared they?

Now the messenger in buying the pennygrabs had gabbled wildly to another boy of the sensational expenditures under way, and this boy, though incredulous, now came to a point in the alley from which he could survey the fed group.  The remains of the whale of a melon were there to convince him.  They were trifling remains, but they sufficed, and the six fuming halves of pennygrabs were confirmatory.  The scout departed rapidly, to return a moment later with two other boys.  One of the latter led a dog.

The three newcomers, with a nice observance of etiquette, surveyed the revellers from a distance.  Lacking decent provocation, they might not approach a group so plainly engaged upon affairs of its own—­unless they went aggressively, and this it did not yet seem wise to do.  The revellers became self-conscious under this scrutiny.  They were moved to new displays of wealth.

“I smelled ’em cookin’ bologna in the back room of Hire’s butcher shop,” remarked the bringer of the pennygrabs.  “It smelt grand.”

The pliant host needed no more.  He was tinder to such a spark.

“Get a quarter’s worth, Howard,” and the slave bounded off, to return with a splendid rosy garland of the stuff, still warm and odorous.

Again the new knife of Merle was used.  The now widely diffused scent of bologna reached the three watchers, and appeared to madden one of them beyond any restraint of good manners.  He sauntered toward them, pretending not to notice the banquet until he was upon it.  He was a desperate-appearing fellow—­dark, saturnine, with a face of sullen menace.

“Give us a hunk,” he demanded.

He should have put it more gently.  He should have condescended a little to the amenities, for his imperious tone at once dried a generous spring of philanthropy.  He was to regret this lack of a mere superficial polish that would have cost him nothing.

“Ho!  Go buy it like we did!” retorted the host, crisply.

“Is that so?” queried the newcomer with rising warmth.

“Yes, sat’s so!”

“Who says it’s so?”

“I say it’s so!”

This was seemingly futile; seemingly it got them nowhere, for the newcomer again demanded:  “Is that so?”

They seemed to have followed a vicious circle.  But in reality they were much farther along, for the mendicant had carelessly worked himself to a point where he could reach for the half circle of bologna still undivided, and the treasure was now snatched from this fate by the watchful legal owner.