Dunham had scarcely recovered from this when another girl, a smart summer boarder who favored him with a stare of interest as she entered, approached the proprietor.
Mr. Frisk in his shirt sleeves was viewing a too precipitate world from behind his counter. "I'd like some marshmallows, please," said the girl.
"Ain't got any," was the response, given with entire amiability.
"Why," disappointedly, "you did have them last week."
"Ye-us, I know. I tried carryin' ma'shmallers quite a spell: but't wan't no use. Seems if everybody wanted 'em. I couldn't keep 'em in stock any time at all, so I give it up."
"Well, I do declare!" exclaimed the young woman. "And, Mr. Frisk, my mother is distressed because that cable message doesn't come from father. If it comes to-night"—
"Oh, that's so, there wus a telegram this noon. Ye-us, that's so. I remember now. 'Twus from yer pa."
"Where is it? Why didn't you send it up, then?" John could hear the vexation fairly crackling in the speaker's voice.
"Why, I see he got thar all right, so I didn't know as thar wus any drive."
Some supporting sense of humor seemed to come to the girl, for John could hear her desperate chuckle as she went out with the cablegram.