“If our House Party is to be a success you three must help. Jim won’t. He’s going to chop wood. Monty, will you ride to the village and send that telegram to Mabel Bruce?”
The lad looked up from the foot he had been contemplating and over which Molly and Alfy had been bending in sympathy, to answer by another question:
“See that shoe, Dolly Calvert? Close shave that. Might have been my very flesh itself, and I’d have blood poisoning and an amputation, and then there’d have been telegrams sent—galore! Imagine my mother—if they had been!”
“It wasn’t your flesh, was it?”
“That’s as Yankee as I am. Always answer your own questions when you ask them and save a lot of trouble to the other fellow. No, I wasn’t hurt but I might have been! Since I’m not, I’m at your service, Lady D. Providing you word your own message and give me a decent horse to ride.”
“There are none but ‘decent’ horses in our stable, Master Stark. I shall need Portia myself, or we girls will. You can go ask a groom to saddle one—that he thinks best. I see through you. You’ve just been getting these girls to waste sympathy on you and you shall be punished by our leaving you alone till lunch time. I’ll write the message, of course. I’d be afraid you wouldn’t put enough in. Only—let me think. How much do telegrams cost?”
“Twenty-five cents for ten words,” came the prompt reply.
“But ten would hardly begin to talk! Is telephoning cheaper? You ought to know, being a boy.”
“Long distance telephoning is about as expensive a luxury as one can buy, young lady. But, why hesitate? It won’t take all of that hundred dollars,” he answered, swaggering a trifle over his superior knowledge.