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Show AARY GRAHAM. -BONNER. COUGH WRETCHES Peter Gnome was feeling very sad. lie was angry, too. You know how much 1'eter tlnuiue loves children and it makes Mm both angry aud sad if ! children have to have any trouble whatever. lie is always going about? wearing an Invisible robe so people cannot see :iim, trying to do all he can to help children. He is happiest when children are happy. He is sad when anything goes wrung with them. lie had been busy arguing with the Tiii-il Twins, who had been bothering a lit lie friend of his, when he heard that Hie Whooping Cough Wretches iu.d yone to visit some children in a bt-auiiful town overlooking the sea. lie was particularly fond of these children. In iact he didn't know any children of whom he was more fond than these two children in particular whose names were Jolm and Gordon. Gordon was very little not little for his age, but little compared to hie older brother, John. Gordon was not so very old. He had not been In the world very long, but every minute and every day since he had been in the j world he had been growing more won- I dc-rful. j Peter Gnome thought he was very I wonderful. He loved the look of hU I ' 1 "You Wretches," He Said. straight little back and sturdy legs. He liked the way his bright foldeo hair curled up a little at the ends. He liked him when he was not look- i ing at his back but when his face wai io be seen, for his face, thought Peter Gnome, was just about as all right as a face could be. Gordon was not called Gordon very often though it was his real name.. He was usually called Honey or something some-thing very affectionate. j I It was even hard not to call him j Baby, though he was a baby no longer. But he was lovable and sweet' and appealing ap-pealing In much the same way that a baby Is lovable and sweet and appeal-i appeal-i ing. ' When he was fast asleep he looked ; so adorable. Oh, how adorable he looked then. And when he woke up j and his gay voice could be heard all I over the house he seemed even more i adorable. He was always suddenly so wide-awake and so bright John was a splendid boy, fine and j unselfish, manly and admirable ia every way, which meant, of course, that Peter Gnome admired him hugely. huge-ly. Teter could never have told you whether he thought more of John ! tlum of Gordon, or more of Gordon I than of John. Yet perhaps because John had been in the world longer than Gordon he was a trifle fonder of John. He had hnrl more time in which to grow fond of John ! And now those wretched wretches of Whooping Cough creature had gone, without being Invited, to see John and Gordon. They took their whoops along with them. True, Joha and Gordon and their mother and daddy were always welcoming friends to the house, but when those wretches came along no one wanted them at all. They played their same Diean games. Every so often they made John give a whooping cough and they did the same thing with Gordon. Peter Gnome rushed off to see them. "You wretches!" he said. To mean, mean wretches, to come and play your horrid games in the house where John and Gordon live, and ereai when they go out into their back garden gar-den you follow them along." The Whooping Cough Wretches are uch wretches that they like to be mean. That just shows you what they are like. And they laughed at Peter Gnome and made John whoop and then made Gordon "whoop. "You should be ashamed of yourselves," your-selves," said Peter Gnome. "Whoop, whoop, whoop," cackled the Whooping Cough Wretches. "Oh, you have been here long enough now, do, for pity's sake, leave my two friends, John and Gordon, alone now." Well, they didn't mind when they were called wretches, they were never ashamed of themselves, but when Peter Pe-ter Gnome suggested they had been around long enough they thought to themselves that maybe they were tired of plnyini here, and they began to pack up their things and leave. And ns they began to pack to leave Peter Gnome said : "And you never, never, never need ceme back again." |