Then they stole silently to George's cottage, and when he opened the door in answer to their timid knock burst into a sudden flood of merriment that never subsided until after midnight.
The Stills were as pleased as could be, but no one paid much attention to them. Somebody thumped the piano while everybody else danced a two-step regardless of interfering toes or furniture.
Little Drybug, a dapper man who weighed about seventy-six pounds but didn't look so heavy, cavorted with blushing Mrs. Still who weighed something less than three hundred—but not much—and nearly committed suicide in the attempt. Commodore Diller danced with Grandma Jones, a rosy-cheeked antiquity who blushed as charmingly as a girl of sixteen, and the general mix-up was about as laughable as could well be.
In the breathless pause that presently ensued as a matter of course, Mr. Idowno, a solemn faced gentleman who had attended the party with his smiling, chubby wife but could not dance a single caper, protested in an audible tone that it was time he must be going. "I have to work for a living, you know," explained this individual, who was director in several banks and controlled a number of business enterprises and could not get them off his mind.
But the company laughed him to scorn and decided to play "five hundred" for a series of prizes that had not been provided in advance, and were therefore invisible.
So the self-invited guests rigged up card tables and chose partners and fought and quarreled for points until Mrs. Rivers rung a gong and invited all to supper.
Then they jumped up and trooped into an adjoining room, where the frosted bricks and mud pies had been spread for a banquet; and although George B. accepted his donations with good humor the guests began to wonder if the joke was not on themselves, after all, since their jolly exertions had created a demand in their interiors for real food.
"Well, I must be going," said the solemn Idowno. "I have to work for——"
"This way, please!" called Mrs. Still, cheerily, and threw open another door, disclosing an enticing array of provender that caused a stampede in that direction.
"How on earth did you happen to have all this on hand?" Susie enquired of Mrs. Still, as she and Jim squeezed themselves into a corner. "Didn't Mrs. Rivers keep her surprise party a secret?"