“There! the piano is just striking up ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ now,” went on Miles after an interval during which Jessica had expressed a happy willingness that the hotel guest who was interested in venerable coins should have his desire gratified and examine the sun-dollar. “You and I are to dance this together in the leading set. After it’s over, we’ll put the sunburst coin on exhibition.”
“Pop Goes the Weasel! Dear me! the last time I danced it was on a public playground with that poor little deaf-and-dumb foreign child whom, between us, we rescued from drowning in the shallow bathing-pool,” murmured Morning-Glory, in fancy seeing little Rebecca’s big-eyed face under the Chinese lantern above her. “Ha! there’s Captain Andy looking in at us, with the hotel guests; he paid me the ‘dandiest’ compliment that day, so the girls told me”—laughing merrily—“he said I was so light on my feet that I danced like a Mother Carey chicken on a foam hill; what d’you think of that?”
“Well, I bet you do! I can tell better, though, after the Weasel has popped,” laughed Stack, as this leading couple in the leading set stood with arms arched for a gay little dancer (it happened to be orchard Kitty who had been duly instructed beforehand in the popping figures) to pass beneath.
Never did a weasel pop to a finish more triumphantly; never did the large handsomely decorated room where fashionable seashore visitors held revel during the summer echo and reëcho to happier laughter, more joyous dance-cries; never certainly did its decorative panels smile upon a company so fraught with promise for the future of their native land as this assemblage of Scouts in khaki and their Camp Fire Sisters.
“Now, when you’ve rested, we’ll exhibit the peso, the Peruvian sun-dollar, to all who want to see it!” suggested Miles when the dance was over and he was fanning his partner with his broad hat, to be worn later when the Boy Scouts were to give an exhibition, go through some drilling and signaling “stunts” for the entertainment of their hostesses.
“I’m rested now, but don’t show it off to too many people at once,” pleaded the girl shyly. “If they’re hotel guests bring them one by one or two at a time—I hate facing a crowd!”
Stack divined that she did not want to run the gauntlet of many questions about her experiences on the day when she had been a castaway on the Neck and espied the coin-waif, from the wreck of long ago, flashing from its wet niche in a sand-hill.
“All right!” he agreed. “We’ll hold a reception for the sun’s face on the sun-dollar, though if I was the sun I’d boycott Peru forever—never shine on ’em again—for caricaturing me like that! I’ll usher guests in one by one; ladies first, then that lawyer-chap to whom I was speaking a while ago who’s interested in coins.” Miles nodded toward a tall, thin man lounging just inside the doorway of the room.
“Did he tell you he was a lawyer?”
“Not in so many words, but he said that he was only resting at this hotel for a day or two and that, then, he was going on to old Newburyport on the Merrimac River, thirty or forty roundabout miles from here, on a quest that was not exactly legal business; he did not say what sort of search it was, but why should he mention that it wasn’t a legal matter if he wasn’t side-stepping his own line, eh?” beamed Miles, fanning more vehemently with his Scout’s hat.