Just remember, will you, that like the
girl in the sob song, `You made me what I am to-day?'"
"I! You're being humorous again."
"Never less so in my life. Listen, Fan. That cowardly,
sickly little boy you fought for in the street, that day in
Winnebago, showed every sign of growing up a cowardly,
sickly man. You're the real reason for his not doing so.
Now, wait a minute. I was an impressionable little kid, I
guess. Sickly ones are apt to be. I worshiped you and
hated you from that day. Worshiped you for the blazing,
generous, whole-souled little devil of a spitfire that you
were. Hated you because--well, what boy wouldn't hate a
girl who had to fight for him. Gosh! It makes me sick to
think of it, even now. Pasty-faced rat!"
"What nonsense! I'd forgotten all about it."
"No you hadn't. Tell me, what flashed into your mind when
you saw me in Temple that night before you left Winnebago?
The truth, now."
She learned, later, that people did not lie to him. She
tried it now, and found herself saying, rather shamefacedly,
"I thought `Why, it's Clarence Heyl, the Cowardy-Cat!'"
"There! That's why I'm here to-day.
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