“I expect the fellows will jest ’bout guy the life out of us for takin’ her along,” Bob whispered to Tom; “but I didn’t see any other way after Josiah was so set upon her goin’.”
“Never mind what they say, so long’s we’ve got her,” Tom replied; “but I think we oughter put our foot down against her comin’ in the first place, ’cause she’s goin’ to break the fun all up before night, an’ I don’t feel like puttin’ out good money without gettin’ somethin’ back.”
There was no further opportunity to discuss the unexpected state of affairs; for at this moment Master Foss hailed them from the opposite side of the street, and, before he could cross, Sadie and Josiah had joined the party.
Bill looked first at the match-girl, and then at his friends, in an inquiring manner, and appeared so thoroughly disturbed in mind that Bob motioned him to step into an unoccupied door-way, where he whispered hoarsely:—
“We couldn’t help it, Bill, for a fact. You see, Josiah’s stuck on takin’ her ’round ’cause he thinks she don’t have many good times, an’ we was bound to do as he wanted, for when we was out to his place everything we said went.”
“An’ is she goin’ all the way with us?” Bill asked anxiously.
“That’s jest the size of it.”
“Well, I wish I had known it beforehand; you wouldn’t have caught me givin’ up a day’s work for the sake of haulin’ her ’round.”
“Now see here,” Tom said, as he approached quickly, understanding from the delay that the small newsdealer was entering his protest against this unexpected addition to the party, “there’s no use kickin’, an’ we’ve got to make the best of it. Don’t get on your ear ’bout a little thing like that, an’ we’ll have jest as good a time as we know how.”
Sadie was so thoroughly delighted with the prospect of seeing Coney Island, a place of which she had heard but never visited, that she paid no attention to the delay which was caused by Master Foss; but Josiah fancied he knew why his friends remained so long in the door-way, and it disturbed him not a little that he should have been the means of marring the day’s pleasure in even the slightest degree.