"Miss Louise Martin requests the pleasure of Mr. John Fletcher's company at a Halloween party to be given at her home on Saturday, October 31st, from eight to ten o'clock."
CHAPTER VII
HE GOES TO A HALLOWEEN PARTY
Of course, he accepted. The temptation of a whole evening in the lady's company was too great. But no sooner had he dropped his reply in the corner mail box than he began to consider the cost.
The doormats and porch furniture of the neighborhood would go unharmed for aught that he might do. No raids on the flats' garbage cans, no ringing of doorbells, or raining peas through open windows. And only through the vainglorious boasting of the gang on Sunday morning would he know of the success of his string-and-can trick. Shucks! He was out of it all.
After breakfast, Mrs. Fletcher glanced at the clear sunlight on the house across the road and announced that John's Saturday tasks would be suspended in honor of the day. He raced up to the Silveys, and found the expedition for cans starting out under the leadership of his chum. Once in the park, the quartette broke into impromptu games of tag, dashing over the moist grass, or halting to puff lustily that they might watch their breaths in the clear, frosty air. Tiring of this as they came to the site of an old exposition bicycle race-track, they ran up and down the grass-covered sides until Perry reminded them that the morning would be over before they knew it, and started on a dogtrot for the goal.
Cans there were in profusion, also a fascinating array of wreckage of other nature in this dump, which lay just north of the park. John picked up a suitable container.
"Get 'em like this," he ordered Perry and Sid. "And be sure they don't leak."
As the two walked obediently off, he prowled among the debris of his own accord. Silvey raised a shout from the water's edge.