"I'd like to see you get up any thing half as nice. You couldn't do it. Boys never invent new games, but girls do. Papa says so, and he knows," answered Nell.
"Pooh! We fellows could beat you as easy as not, if we cared to; so you needn't brag, miss. Men invent every thing in the world, 'specially ventilators, and you see how useful they are," returned Tom, glad that he had kept his place in spite of the maltreatment his extremities were undergoing.
"Boys are more curious than girls, anyway. We should never have done such a mean thing as to peek at you," cried Kitty, coming to the rescue, and hitting the enemy in his weakest spot.
"Oh, we only did it for fun. Give us a taste of your spread, and we'll never say a word about it," returned the barefaced boy, with a wheedlesome air, and a tender glance toward the dainty tea-table set forth so temptingly just under his nose.
"Not a bit, unless you'll say our tree is lovely and own that we are the cleverest at getting up new and nice things," said Kitty, sternly.
"Never!" roared Tom; "we can beat you any day if we choose."
"Then do it, and we will own up; yes, and we will go halves in all the goodies we get off our big tree to-night," added Kitty, bound to stand by her sex and ready to wager a year's bon-bons in the defence of her position.
"By George, I'll do it if the fellows will agree! Honor bright now, and no dodging," said Tom, recklessly pledging himself and friends to any thing and every thing.
"Honor bright," chorused the girls in high glee.
"Only don't be a month about it; you boys are so slow," added Grace, in a superior tone, that ruffled the gentleman at the ventilator.