"I just told you," Allen's tone showed disgust. "Isn't there one among you with any pep at all? How about you, Betty? You're usually the one to start things."
Betty looked up at him with a slow, tantalizing little smile. "That's why I am letting you take the lead this time," she purred. "I thought I'd wait and see who'd make the first move."
"And I am going to force the second move," and before she could guess what he was going to do, he leaned over, caught her two hands in his and pulled her to her feet. "Now, you are going to take a little walk with me, young lady. If the rest of this lazy crowd don't want to come along, they know what they can do!"
The Little Captain blinked at him uncertainty. "You might tell me what you are going to do," she complained. "Look, Allen—you hurt me!"
He regarded the brown little hand, held up for his inspection, anxiously. "I don't see anything," he said. "But if I hurt it I am sorry," and he stroked the place that should have been red.
"If you are going, why don't you go?" Grace demanded, then added meaningly: "I guess they are glad we are lazy."
"Please don't make any insinuations," said Betty, her nose in the air, but Allen sent a laughing shot back at them before they disappeared into the denser wood.
"You can eat another plum pudding if you like," he said.
Frank chuckled audibly. "Wise old chap—Allen," he remarked.
"I wish we could take his advice," mourned Amy. "If you boys hadn't been such pigs, we might have had some pudding left."