Ted’s voice was not very positive, and the girls, all three, assisted him in coaxing Nero out to the small door under the back porch, where he was finally made a prisoner, with several plates of food set before him to lighten the misery.
It surely would be disastrous for Ted to lose his dog.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE STORY TOLD
The Whatnot Shop was quite powerless to prevent the invasion.
“We’ll push all the tables back and set the chairs around in a half-circle,” suggested the fluttered Nancy. “Then, it will be just like—”
“A play,” finished Isabel. “Too bad we can’t turn on a spot light.”
“I think it would be nice to let Mr. Townsend sit behind the counter on his old high stool,” Nancy further suggested. “It might make him feel at home. I wonder where we put that stool.”
“Away back in the corner under the three-cornered shelf,” Ruth informed her. “I rammed it in there myself.”
It was dragged out—the stool, and set just where it had been found when Nancy first took possession of the shop.
“A regular par-tee!” chanted Isabel. “Glad I happened to wear a white dress; being a deb and all that.”