John Gardiner sauntered up.
"Got everything you want?" he asked in a manful effort to be attentive.
"No!" replied Nan, promptly, with a twinkle in her eye. "I want a bicycle, please. Won't you get me one?" and she held out her plate as if to have it supplied with the desired article.
The tall fellow laughed. "With pleasure," he said, and took the plate and marched off with it.
"O dear! I hadn't finished my salad!" lamented Nan, looking regretfully after him.
Louie managed to telegraph their dilemma to Harley Morris, who promptly responded to it by appearing with another plate of salad and a dish of sandwiches. He did not go away after Nan was served, but stayed on and led in the laugh when John Gardiner reappeared with a tiny ice cream bicycle daintily poised against a mound of jelly, which he presented to Nan with a low bow full of mock dignity, saying:
"You have only to command and you are obeyed. Here is your wheel, and may it go as fast as if it were geared to a hundred."
"Thank you," replied Nan, accepting the joke and the plate at the same time. "It'll go fast enough, no fear of that. Eating is never up-hill work with me, and this has nothing to do but coast, you see," and she swallowed the first mouthful down with a jolly laugh.
"Look over at Mary Brewster! She's trying her best to pretend she ignores us," whispered Ruth, but not so low but that the young fellows could hear.
"Is one who ignores an ignor—amus?" asked Harley Morris, grinning broadly at his own witticism.