“Bally goose!” murmured Jessie.
The reproof that rose to Mrs. Payton’s lips was drowned in a shout of laughter.
CHAPTER XVI
THE RED-LETTER DAY
“Hang the luck!” ejaculated Phil, flinging aside his book in disgust. “Here it is, our first day over, and look at it!” And, drawing aside the light chintz curtains, he disclosed a view that was, to say the least, very discouraging.
The rain came down in torrents, rebounding from the shining pavement and the no less shining umbrellas of passing pedestrians, with vicious little pops and hisses that sounded more like a storm of tiny daggers than of raindrops. As time went on, instead of lightening, the sky had grown murkier and murkier and darker and darker, until, in many parts of the hotel, people had been forced to turn on the lights. Over and about everything hung that moist, indefinably depressing atmosphere that makes one rail at fate and long for the blessing of the sun and a clear day.
Such was Phil’s enviable state of mind as he dropped the curtain and slumped back into his chair with an impatient grunt.
“’Tis rather mean, isn’t it?” drawled Jessie, dropping her book and looking at the disconsolate Phil lazily. “You don’t happen to have any more of those candies around you anywhere, do you, Evelyn?” she queried.