Barbour Ralph Henry
The Turner Twins

CHAPTER XIII – NED GETS INTO THE GAME

Four hectic days followed. To Laurie, since Ned was held for two hours each afternoon at the football field, fell most of the duties of the Committee on Arrangements, and he was a very busy youth. He badgered shopkeepers into parting with goods to be sold at the booths, helped Bob Starling trim up the old arbor in the garden of the Coventry place, made frequent trips to the Or stead caterer’s, engaged eight cakes from Miss Comfort and twelve dozen cream-puffs from the Widow Deane, spent two hours Wednesday helping Lew and Hal Pringle distribute posters throughout the village, and attended to a hundred other matters between-times. Of course, Ned aided when he could, and was helpful with advice and unfailing in suggestions; but recitations and football practice didn’t leave him much time, even though he conscientiously arose a full hour earlier every morning that week, and skimped studying so much that he got in trouble with three instructors in one day!

Miss Tabitha had proved as helpful as Dan Whipple had predicted. She had shaken her head at the idea of entertaining six hundred at the fête. “You mustn’t count on more than half that many,” she said. “I dare say all the boys will go, and they’ll make ninety. Then, if you get two hundred of the townsfolk, you’ll be doing very nicely. Don’t decide how much salad or how many sandwiches you want until Saturday morning. So much will depend on the weather. Even if you hold the affair indoors, lots of folks won’t come if it rains. You say you’ve ordered eight cakes from Martha Comfort and twelve dozen cream-puffs from Mrs. Deane?”

“Yes’m,” said Ned. “We wanted Mrs. Deane to make more, but she didn’t think she could.”

“Well, that’s a hundred and fourty-four cream-puffs, and – let me see – one of Miss Comfort’s cakes will cut into sixteen pieces, and eight times sixteen – ”

“A hundred and twenty-eight, ma’am.”

“Well, and a hundred and twenty-eight and a hundred and forty-four – ”

“Two hundred and seventy-two.”

“You’re real quick at figures, aren’t you? Seems as if, though, counting on three hundred, you’d be a little short. I’ll have Aunt Persis make one of her marble-cakes. That’ll help out, I guess.”

“Yes’m; thanks awfully,” answered Ned.

“Who is going to serve the refreshments?”

“Why – why – ” Ned’s face fell. “I guess we hadn’t thought of that!”

“Well, it makes a heap of difference, because you can make a quart of ice-cream serve ten people or twenty, just as you’ve a mind to. I usually count on sixteen. Same way with a loaf of cake, and same way with salad. It’s awfully easy to waste salad when you’re serving it. Now, if you’d like me to, Ned, I’ll attend to serving everything for you. You just have the things set down there and I’ll look after them.”

“Oh, Miss Hillman, if you would! Gee, that would be great! It – it’ll be a lot of trouble, though, ma’am.”

“Well, I guess it won’t be the first trouble I’ve seen,” replied Miss Tabitha, dryly; “nor it won’t be the last!”

Thursday afternoon Laurie hurried over to the Coventry place as soon as a two-o’clock recitation was done. Bob was awaiting him at the gate, and conducted him around to the back of the big square house. Ned stared in surprise. The tangle of trees and vines and shrubbery had been trimmed to orderly neatness, the long, unkempt grass had been shorn to a yellow, but respectable, turf, and the old arbor showed new strips where Thomas, the Starlings’ man, had been at work on the decrepit frame. Near at hand lay piles of cedar and hemlock branches.

“Dad got a couple of the men to cut those down near the tunnel and haul them up here.” Bob explained. “Thomas is going to help us put them up. He made a peachy job of the garden, didn’t he?”

“You bet!” responded Laurie, heartily. “I wouldn’t have known the place! I say, Bob, this arbor’s longer than I thought it was.”

“Forty feet, about. Why?”

“I only ordered six tables and a dozen chairs from the caterer,” answered Laurie, dubiously. “Guess they aren’t enough; but he’s charging twenty-five cents apiece for them – ”

“Twenty-five cents for a table? Isn’t that dirt-cheap?”

“We’re only renting them, you idiot!”

“Oh, I see. Well, six is enough, I guess; you don’t want to crowd them. Now let’s get busy with the green stuff. I’ll yell down cellar for Thomas. There’s a ball of twine, and I’ve got two hammers and a lot of tacks on the side porch. You take your coat off and I’ll – ”

“We’ll have to have a step-ladder, Bob!”

“There’s a short ladder right beside you. Be right back.”

Laurie sat down on a wheelbarrow, after removing his coat and folding back the sleeves of his shirt, and looked around him. The garden was fairly large – larger in appearance since the clutter of shrubbery along the sides had been cleared away. Along the School Park edge ran a tall hedge of lilac bushes. At the back was the high board fence, painted dark brown, that separated the garden from the Widow Deane’s humble property. On the other side was a rusty ornamental iron fence, mostly hidden by vines. Broad walks, in spite of Thomas’s efforts rather overrun with weeds, surrounded the central plot of ancient turf, and another ran straight down the middle of the garden, connecting with the arbor. Wires were to be strung from the trees and across to the arbor, and Chinese lanterns hung thereon. Laurie, half closing his eyes, sought to visualize the place as it would appear on Saturday. He did want the affair to be a success, both financial and artistic, both on account of the school and – well, for the honor of the Turners! While he was musing, two things happened simultaneously: Bob and Thomas appeared from the house, and a familiar voice came to him from the opposite direction.

“Nod!” called the voice. “Nod, will you please come here a moment?”

Laurie’s eyes sought the board fence. Over the top of it appeared the head and shoulders of Polly. He left the wheelbarrow and hurried through the arbor and down the walk beyond. Polly’s face indicated distress, whether mental or physical Laurie couldn’t determine. But Polly’s first words explained.

“I can’t stay here l-long,” she said. “I – I’m just hanging by my elbows. I cl-climbed up on a board, and it’s fallen down!”

“I’ll get you a ladder!” cried Laurie, gallantly.

“N-no, never mind. I’m going to drop in a s-second. I just want to ask you what Brown’s color is. Nettie Blanchard is going to be Brown and – ”

“Why, brown, of course!”

“Oh!” There was the sound of desperate scraping against the farther side of the fence, and Polly’s countenance became fairly convulsed with the effort of holding herself in sight. “Oh! She said it was pur-pur – ”

Polly disappeared. There was a thud from the next yard.

“Purple!” The word floated across to him, muffled but triumphant.

“Are you hurt, Polly?” he called anxiously.

“Not a bit,” was the rueful response, “but I’m afraid the day-lilies are!” Then she laughed merrily. “Thanks, Nod! I didn’t think Nettie was right. She loves purple, you see!”

“Does she? Well, say, maybe she can be Williams. We weren’t going to have Williams, but its color is purple, I think, and if she is going to be disappointed – ”

“She will look very well indeed in brown,” came from the other side in judicial tones; “and if we begin making changes, half the girls will want to be something they aren’t. Why, Pearl Fayles begged to be some girls’ college neither Mae nor I had ever heard of, just so she could wear lavender and pale lemon!”

“Well, all right,” laughed Laurie. “She’d better stick to Brown – and brown! Good-by, Polly. I’ll drop in after a while and find out how things are getting on.”

He turned to find Bob viewing him quizzically from the end of the arbor, swinging a hammer in each hand. “Of course it’s all right, I dare say,” he announced, “but I thought you came here to fix up the arbor. Instead of that I find you talking to girls over the fence!”

“There’s only one girl,” replied Laurie, with dignity, “and we were talking business.”

“Oh, of course! Sorry I interrupted.”

“You needn’t be, and you didn’t. Quit grinning like a simpleton and give me a hammer!”

“Right-o! Come on, Thomas! It’s quite all right now!”

An hour later their task was done, and well done, and they viewed it with approval. To be honest, the major part of the work had been performed by the faithful Thomas, although it is not to be denied that both Laurie and Bob toiled conscientiously. Before they were through approving the result from various angles, Bob’s father joined them. Mr. Starling was an older edition of Bob – a tall, straight, lean-visaged man of forty-two or – three, with the complexion of one who had lived an outdoor life. He had a deep, pleasant voice and a quiet manner not fully in accord with a pair of keen eyes and a firm mouth.

“I’d call that a good piece of work, boys,” he said, as he joined them. “And right up to specifications, too. Those paper lanterns come yet, Bob?”

“No, sir; I haven’t seen them.”

“Lanterns, Mr. Starling?” asked Laurie. “Do you mean Chinese lanterns? We’ve ordered a lot from the caterer, sir.”

“Tell him you won’t need them, then. I’ve got a hundred coming up from the city, Turner. They ought to be here, too. Thomas, call up the express company and ask about them.”

“That’s very kind, sir,” said Laurie, “but you needn’t have done it. You – you’re doing everything!”

“Nonsense! Bob and I want to do our part, of course. Well, this wilderness certainly looks different, doesn’t it? That reminds me, Bob; the agent writes me that we may ‘make such improvements to the property as we desire.’ So, as I consider the absence of that arbor an improvement, I guess you can pull it down any time you like. I’m going to have a cup of tea, Turner. Will you join me? I believe there will be cakes, too.”

Laurie found Ned in rather a low frame of mind when he got back to Number 16 a half-hour before supper-time. Ned was hunched over a Latin book and each hand held a firm grip on his hair. At Laurie’s arrival he merely grunted.

“Where does it pain you most?” asked Laurie, solicitously, subsiding into a chair with a weary sigh. Ned’s mood was far from flippant. He rewarded the other with a scowl, and bent his gaze on the book again. “Want to hear the latest news from the front?” persisted Laurie.

“No, I don’t!” his brother growled. “I’ve had all the news I can stand. Smug says that if I don’t get this rotten stuff by nine to-night, and make a perfect showing to-morrow, he will can me!”

“Mr. Cornish said that?” gasped Laurie. “What do you know about that? Why, I thought he was a gentleman!”

“He’s a – a brute! I can’t learn the old stuff! And I have a hunch that Mulford means to give me a try in the Loring game Saturday. And if I don’t get this, Cornish will fix it so I can’t play. He as good as said so.”

“Didn’t you tell him you’d been busy with the fête and everything?”

“Of course I did. Much he cared! Just made a rotten pun. Said I’d better keep my own fate in mind. Puns are fearfully low and vulgar!”

“Aren’t they? How much of that have you got?”

“Six pages. I – I’ve sort of neglected it the last two days. Some fellows can fake through, but I don’t have any luck. He’s always picking on me.”

Laurie whistled expressively. “Six pages! Well, never say die, partner. We’ll get down to supper early, and that’ll give us two hours before nine.”

“Us?” questioned Ned, hopefully.

“Sure. I’ll give you a hand. As the well-known proverb so wisely remarks, two heads are the shortest way home.”

Ned grinned, and stopped tormenting his hair. “Honest? That’s mighty decent, Laurie. I’ll do as much for you some day.”

“Hope you won’t have to. Wash your dirty face and let’s beat it!”

At half-past nine a more cheerful and much relieved Ned returned from the hall master’s study. “All right,” he announced to an anxious Laurie. “He was rather decent, too. Said he guessed that, in view of the manifold affairs engaging my attention just now, – you know the crazy way he talks, – he wouldn’t demand too much from me. Reckon he means to let me down easy to-morrow, eh?”

“Maybe, partner, and maybe not. Take my advice and, in the words of the Scouts, be prepared!”

Friday was a hectic day for Laurie and all others concerned with the fête. Difficulties that had remained in ambush all the week sprang out and confronted them at the last moment. Half a dozen things had been forgotten, and every member of the committee sought to exonerate himself. Tempers were short and the meeting in Dan Whipple’s room at nine o’clock was far from harmonious. All went to bed that night firmly convinced that the affair was doomed to be a flat failure. And, to add to that conviction, the night sky was overcast and an unsympathetic easterly wind was blowing. Ned, conscious of having imposed too many duties on Laurie, was grouchy and silent; and Laurie, convinced that he had been made a “goat” of, and that Ned was secretly blaming him for mistakes and omissions that were no fault of his, retired in high dudgeon.

And yet, the morning dawned fair and warm, with an almost cloudless blue sky over the world, and life looked very different indeed. Ned arose whistling, and Laurie somehow knew that everything would be all right. Fortunately, they had but two recitations on Saturday, and in consequence there remained to them three whole hours before dinner to devote to the affairs of the entertainment. They were busy hours, you may be sure. If Ned hurried downtown once, he hurried there half a dozen times; while Laurie, seated beside the driver of a rickety express-wagon, rounded up all kinds of things, from the platform at the field-house to the cakes at Miss Comfort’s. Dinner brought a respite; but as soon as it was over, Laurie was back on the job, while Ned joined the football-players.

Of course, what the Hillman’s School football team should have done that afternoon was to score a decisive victory over the visiting eleven. What it did do was to get thoroughly worsted. Loring was something of a surprise, with a heavier line and a faster bunch of backs than Hillman’s had expected. And Loring knew a lot of football, and proved the fact early in the game. At half-past two, by which time the second period was half over, the result was a foregone conclusion. Loring had scored two touch-downs and as many goals therefrom, and the Blue had never once threatened the adversary’s last white line. Gains through the opponent were infrequent and short, even Pope, who could generally be depended on to tear off a few yards when the worst came to the worst, failing dismally.

In mid-field, Mason and Slavin made some stirring advances around the Loring wings, and there were several successful forward passes to the home team’s credit; but, once past Loring’s thirty-yard line, Hillman’s seemed powerless. The third quarter went scoreless, and in the fourth, realizing doubtless that defeat was certain, Coach Mulford used his substitutes lavishly. Ned made his first appearance on the big team in that period, taking Mason’s place for some eight of the fifteen minutes. He did neither better nor worse than the other second- and third-string fellows, perhaps – although, when Pope was taken out and Deering substituted at full-back, he did his share of the punting and performed very creditably. But that fourth period gave Loring an opportunity to add to her score, and she seized it. Even with several substitutes in her own line-up, she was still far better than Hillman’s, and a goal from the field and, in the last few moments of the game, a third touch-down, resulted.

The Blue fought desperately and gamely with her back to the wall, in an effort to stave off that last score; but eventually Holmes, who had taken Kewpie’s place at center, weakened, and the Loring back piled through. The final score was 23 to 0, and what two hours before had been looked on as a victory or, at the worst, a tie, had become a cataclysm! Humiliated, if not disgraced, the home-team players trailed to the field-house with hanging heads, averting their eyes from the sight of Loring’s triumphal march around the gridiron.

CHAPTER XIV – THE FETE

Behold Fairyland!

Well, at least an excellent imitation of what Fairyland must look like. Overhead, a clear, star-sprinkled sky; below, scores of gaily-hued lanterns shedding their soft glow over a charming scene. Through the side gate, please, on School Park. Twenty-five cents to the boy on duty there, and you are inside, with the manifold attractions awaiting you. On three sides of the transformed garden are the college booths, each decked with bunting and flags of appropriate colors, and each presided over by a patriotically attired young lady who will gladly, nay, eagerly, sell you almost anything from a cake of soap (“Donated by the Town Square Pharmacy, H. J. Congreve, Prop’r.”) to a knitted sweater or a gingham house-dress (“Compliments of The New York Store, High Class Dry Goods”). Near at hand, Yale is represented by Miss Polly Deane, capped and aproned in blue, her eyes sparkling and her voice sweetly insistent: “Won’t you buy something, please, sir? Post-cards, two for five! These pictures are only fifty cents, all beautifully framed and ready for hanging! Can I sell you something, ma’am?”

Beyond, gay with orange and black, is the Princeton booth; and still beyond, Dartmouth and Columbia and California; and then, a blur of brilliant crimson through the leafage, Harvard. And so on all around the garden, with merry voices sounding above the chatter of the throng that moves here and there. Down the center of Fairyland runs a leafy tunnel from within which blue and red and yellow and green rays twinkle. There, under the hanging lanterns, little tables and chairs are dotted on the gravel, and half a dozen aproned youths are busy bearing, not always without mishap, plates of salad and rolls and dishes of ice-cream and cake. Close to the back of the house is a platform illumined by a row of electric lights, the one glaring spot in the area of soft radiance.

“How’s it going?” asked a heavily-built youth of a slimmer one who had paused at the entrance to the arbor.

“Hello, Kewpie! Oh, bully, so far. We took in eighty-four dollars this afternoon, and we’ll do at least twice as well to-night. They’re still coming. Have you seen Whipple anywhere?”

“Yes, a minute ago, down at the Pennsylvania booth. She’s a mighty pretty girl, too, Nod. I bought a pocket-knife of her for a quarter, and got stung; but I don’t mind. I’m going back to get another pretty soon. When do I have to sing again?”

“You follow Wilson’s clog-dance. We’re switching you and Cheesman, Kewpie. His stuff is corking, but it’s pretty high-brow, and we thought you’d better bring up the end and make the audience feel cheerful.”

“All right; but it won’t feel very cheerful if those orchestra guys don’t do better than they did this afternoon. They were four or five notes behind me once! Nid said you had a new stunt this evening – something you left out this afternoon.”

“Yes; we couldn’t work it in daylight very well. It ought to go fine to-night, though.”

“What is it?”

“You wait and see. I’ve got to find Whipple. Say, if you see Ned, tell him I’ll be at the platform in five minutes and want him to meet me there. Everybody keeps getting lost here!”

On the way past the arbor, Laurie ran into George Watson, returning across lots balancing a couple of plates in one hand and holding a large slab of cake in the other, from which he nibbled as he went. “Hello!” he said, none too distinctly. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Wanted to bring me refreshments, I suppose.”

George looked at the empty plates, laughed, and shook his head. “Not exactly. I’ve been feeding Cornell. Somebody ought to take eats to those girls, Nod; they’re starving!”

“All right; you do it.”

“What do you think I am? A millionaire? I bought Mae a salad and an ice-cream, and I’m about broke. Lend me a half, will you? Thanks. Want an ice-cream? I’ll treat.”

“No, thanks. Have you seen Dan Whipple?”

“Sure! He’s over at the Pennsylvania booth, buying it out! Say, everything’s going great, isn’t it? Couldn’t have had a finer evening, either, what? Well, see you later. I’m hungry!” And George continued his way to the house, where Miss Tabitha, surrounded by willing and hungry helpers, presided sternly, but most capably, over the refreshments.

At eight o’clock the boy on duty at the entrance estimated the attendance as close to two hundred, which, added to the eighty-six paid admissions before supper, brought the total close to the first estimate of three hundred. It is safe to say that every Hillman’s boy attended the fête either in the afternoon or evening, and that most of the faculty came and brought Mrs. Faculty – when there was a Mrs. Faculty. Doctor Hillman was spied by Laurie purchasing a particularly useless and unlovely article in burnt wood from the auburn-haired Miss Hatch. Every one seemed to be having a good time, and the only fly in the ointment of the committee was the likelihood that the refreshments would be exhausted far too soon.

The Weather Man had kindly provided an evening of exceptional warmth, with scarcely enough breeze to sway the paper lanterns that glowed from end to end of the old garden, an evening so warm that ice-cream was more in demand than sandwiches or salad; and fortunately so, since ice-cream was the one article of refreshment that could be and was replenished. If, said Ned, folks would stick to ice-cream and go light on the other refreshments, they might get through. To which Laurie agreed, and Ned hied him to the telephone and ordered another freezer sent up.

At a few minutes after eight the Banjo and Mandolin Club took possession of the chairs behind the platform and dashed into a military march. Following that, six picked members of the Gymnastic Club did some very clever work, and Cheesman, a tall and rather soulful-looking upper middler, sang two ballads very well indeed, and then, as an encore, quite took the joy out of life with “Suwanee River”! Little Miss Comfort, present through the courtesy of the Committee on Arrangements, sniffled quite audibly, but was heard to declare that “it was just too sweet for anything!” A rather embarrassed junior attempted some card tricks that didn’t go very well, and then Wilson, garbed more or less in the character of an Irish gentleman returning from Donnybrook Fair, and swinging a shillaly, did some jig-dancing that was really clever and won much applause.

There was a brief unofficial intermission while three anxious committee members made search for Kewpie Proudtree. He was presently discovered consuming his fourth plate of ice-cream in the seclusion of the side porch, and was haled away, protesting, to the platform. In spite of what may seem an over-indulgence in refreshment, Kewpie was in excellent voice and a jovial mood, and sang four rollicking songs in a manner that captured his audience. In fact, long after Kewpie had vanished from the public gaze and returned to his ice-cream, the audience still demanded more.

Its attention was eventually captured, however, by Dan Whipple, who announced importantly that it gave him much pleasure to say that, at a great expense, the committee had secured as an added attraction the world-famed Signor Duodelli, who, with their kind permission, would exhibit for their pleasure and astoundment his miraculous act known as the Vanishing Man, as performed before the crowned heads of Europe, to the bewilderment and applause of all beholders. “Ladies and gentlemen, Signor Duodelli!”

The Signor had a noticeable likeness to Lew Cooper, in spite of his gorgeous mustache and flowing robe of red and purple cheese-cloth. Yet it might not have been Lew, for his manner was extremely foreign and his gestures and the few words he used in directing the arranging of his “properties” were unmistakably Latin. The properties consisted of a kitchen chair, a threefold screen covered with black baize, and a coil of rope. There was also in evidence a short wand, but the Signor held that in his hand, waving it around most eloquently. The audience laughed and applauded and waited patiently until the chair had been placed exactly to the Signor’s liking, close to the back of the platform, and the screen beside it. Previously several of the lights had been put out, and those that remained threw their glare on the front of the stage, leaving the back, while discernible, less in evidence.

“Now,” announced the Signor, narrowly escaping from falling off the platform as he tripped over his robe, “I aska da some one coma up and giva da help. Any one I aska. You, Signor, maybe, eh?” The magician pointed his wand at Mr. Cornish, in the front of the clustered audience; but the gentleman laughingly declined. The Signor seemed disappointed. “No-o-o? You no geta da hurt. Some one else, eh?” He looked invitingly around, and a small junior, urged by his companions, struggled to the front. Unfortunately for his ambitions to pose in the lime-light, the Signor’s glance had moved to another quarter, and, ere the junior could get his attention, a volunteer appeared from the semi-obscurity of the kitchen porch. He was peculiarly attired, wearing a simple white garment having a strong resemblance to the old-fashioned night-shirt, that covered him completely from neck to ankles. He was bareheaded, revealing the fact that his locks were red-brown in hue.

“Ah!” exclaimed the Signor, delightedly. “You will helpa me, si? Right thisa way, Signor. I thanka you!”

“That’s one of the Turner fellows,” muttered a boy, while the small junior and his companions called “Fake!” loudly. However, the good-natured laughter of the audience drowned the accusation, and some two hundred pairs of eyes watched amusedly and expectantly while, with the assistance of two other volunteers, the youth in the white robe was tied securely to the chair.

“Maka him tight,” directed the Signor, enthusiastically, waving his wand. “Pulla da knot. Ha, thata da way! Good! Signors, I thanka you!”

The two who had tied the victim to the chair retired from the platform. The Signor seized the screen and opened it wide and turned it around and closed it and turned it again.

“You seea?” he demanded. “There is nothing that deceive! Now, then, I placea da screen so!” He folded it around the boy and the chair, leaving only the side away from the audience uncovered. He drew away the width of the platform, and, “Music, ifa you please,” he requested. The orchestra, whose members had moved their chairs to one side, struck up a merry tune, and the Signor, folding his arms, bent a rapt gaze on the blank, impenetrable blackness of the screen. A brief moment passed. Then the Signor bade the music cease, took a step forward, and pointed to the screen.

“Away!” he cried, and swung his arm in a half-circle, his body following with a weird flaring of his brilliant robes until, with outstretched finger, he faced the audience. “Ha! He come! Thisa way, Signor! Comea quick!”

As one man the audience turned and followed the pointing finger. Through the deserted arbor came a boy in a white garment. He pushed his way through the throng and jumped to the stage. As he did so, the Signor whisked aside the screen. There was the chair empty, and there was the rope dangling from it, twisted and knotted.

A moment of surprised silence gave place to hearty applause. Theoretically it might have been possible for the boy in the chair to vanish from behind the screen, reach the farther end of the garden, and run back into sight; but actually, as the audience realized on second thought, it couldn’t possibly have been done in the few seconds, surely not more than ten, that had elapsed between the placing of the screen and the appearance of the boy behind them. And then, how had he got himself free from the rope? An audience likes to be puzzled, and this one surely was. The garden hummed with conjecture and discussion. There were some there who could have explained the seeming phenomenon, but they held their counsel.

Meanwhile, on the platform the Signor was modestly bowing alternately to the audience and to his subject, the latter apparently no worse for his magic transposition. And the orchestra again broke into its interrupted melody. The applause became insistent, but Signor Duodelli, perhaps because his contract with the committee called for no further evidence of his powers, only bowed and bowed and at last disappeared into the obscurity of the shadows. Whereupon the Banjo and Mandolin Club moved into the house, and presently the strains of a one-step summoned the dancers to the big drawing-room.

Laurie, unconsciously rubbing a wrist, smiled as he listened to the comments of the dissolving audience. “Well, but there’s no getting around the fact that it was the same boy,” declared a pompous little gentleman to his companion. “Same hair and eyes and everything! Couldn’t be two boys as much alike, eh? Not possibly! Very clever!”

Laurie chuckled as he made his way to Polly’s booth. That young lady looked a little tired, and, by the same token, so did the Yale booth! Only a bare dozen framed pictures and a small number of post-cards remained of her stock. “Don’t you think I’ve done awfully well?” asked Polly, a trifle pathetically. She seemed to need praise, and Laurie supplied it.

“Corking, Polly,” he assured her. “I guess you’ve sold more than any of the others, haven’t you?”

“N-no, I guess some of the others have done better, Nod; but I think they had more attractive articles, don’t you? Anyhow, I’ve taken in twelve dollars and thirty cents since supper, and I made four dollars and eighty-five cents this afternoon; only I must have dropped a dime somewhere, for I’m ten cents short. Or perhaps someone didn’t give me the right amount.”

“Why, that’s seventeen dollars!” exclaimed Laurie. “I didn’t think you had anywhere near seventeen dollars’ worth of things here, Polly!”

“Oh, I didn’t! Not nearly! Why, if I’d sold things at the prices marked on them, Nod, I wouldn’t have had more than half as much! But lots of folks wanted to pay more, and I let them. Mr. Conklin, the jeweler, bought a picture, one of the funny landscapes with the frames that didn’t fit at the corners, and he said it was ridiculous to sell it for a quarter, and he gave me a dollar for it. Then he held the picture up and just laughed and laughed at it! I guess he just wanted to spend his money, don’t you? You know, Ned said we were to get as much as we could for things, so I usually added ten cents to the price that was marked on them – sometimes more, if a person looked extravagant. One lady came back and said she’d paid twenty-five cents for a picture and it was marked fifteen on the back. I said I was sorry she was dissatisfied and I’d be very glad to buy it back from her for twenty.”