Then Mother Huldah shook her finger at him. "You switch your tail just as
if you were going to steal something. Tommie, I brought you up better
than that."

"Steal! nonsense!" cried Tommie. "Most of 'em have more than they
need, anyway."

"Tommie, I believe you're hungry, or your morals wouldn't be so queer!"
Mother Huldah said reprovingly.

"Hungry!" exclaimed Tommie. "I dream of lobster claws and chicken wings
and blue saucers full of yellow wrinkled cream, twelve in a row. No
wonder my morals are queer!"

Then what happened was that poor Mother Huldah dozed off to sleep and
when she awoke there was Tommie staring into the fire, his green eyes
like two lanterns and his whiskers standing out very stiff and knowing,
and at Mother Huldah's' feet was a wicker basket from which issued a most
appetizing odor. "Why, Thomas" (she always called him Thomas in solemn
moments), "what's this?"

"Your dinner," said Tommie, and yawned like a gentleman who lights a
cigarette and says, "O hang it all! what a beastly bore life is."

"Thomas," questioned Mother Huldah solemnly, "where did you get this
dinner?" for she had taken the cover off the basket and found a small
roast chicken with vegetables and a bread pudding.

"Why, I was strolling down the gray lane when I met a woman carrying that
basket and I smelled chicken; so up I stood on my hind legs, and winked