"Then tell me, sir," and the old man's tone was angry and challenging to a remarkable degree, "why in the name of the devil my gran'son, Stephen, ain't showed up yet!"
Guy Little might have remarked that it was rather early to expect any one to show up. It was not yet six o'clock of a morning which promised to be one of the very finest mornings ever known. The old man had, as Guy Little expressed it, "been prancin' an' pawin' aroun'," for an hour.
Guy Little grinned like any cherub.
"He has showed up," he chuckled, though he had meant to hold back the tidings teasingly. "He come in late las' night. You was asleep an' sleepin' soun', so——"
"He did, did he?" bellowed the old man. "Crept in like a damn' thief in the night, did he? Well, where is he now? Sleepin' yet, I'll be bound. When he ought to be up an'— Why, when I was a young devil his age——"
"He's outside somewhere," said Guy Little. "He has been down to the crick for a mornin' dip, I'd guess, your majesty."
"Why would you guess that?"
"Because pretty near all he had on was a towel an' a—a sort of a——immodes' britch-cloth," explained Guy Little confidentially.
"An'," continued old man Packard, "where's—she?"
"Meanin' the Fairy Queen, your majesty?" Guy Little's voice was now a whisper.