“Can’t you keep still while I’m ’phoning?” he demanded. “Boys are a nuisance.”
He applied himself again to the ’phone.
“No, sir, I did not say you were a nuisance. I said, ‘Boys are a nuisance.’ Yes.”
He turned and glanced malevolently at the boys, as much as to say, “Now see what you’ve done.”
Then the conversation went on.
“See the boy?—No, that is impossible.—Two boys were here to-night to—Hey! What confounded impudence!”
Ralph had dashed forward and was clutching his arm. He had jerked the receiver from the fussy little old man and slapped his other hand over the transmitter.
“Don’t say anything about us being here, sir, I beg of you. You may foil the ends of justice. You may——”
“Hoity-toity! What’s all this? What are boys coming to? Be quiet, sir. Let me talk at once. Hullo, Mr. Malvern! Hello, sir! Are you there?”
But apparently “Mr. Malvern,” to use Canadian telephone terms, was “not there.”