“It was wider than we thought and the basket kept going down——” Nat’s voice was hoarse, but he couldn’t control his mirth.
“The rope slipped some—and the basket stuck——” Ted’s voice was brimming over with apologies.
“Naturally, we would have entered by the front door,” politely explained Gus, “had we foreseen this.”
“You see it stuck,” persisted Ted, apparently unable to remember anything but that awful fact.
“Then it really wasn’t spooks,” asked a tall, dark-haired girl, as she joined the group.
One by one the guests gingerly returned to the room and stood about, staring in amusement at the boys. The cool, though severe stares of the ladies were harder to bear than any rough treatment that might be accorded them by the men. Against the latter they could defend themselves, but, as Ned suddenly realized, there is no defence for mere man against the amused stare of a lady.
“It certainly could be slated at police headquarters as ‘entering’,” calmly said a stout man, taking in every detail of the boys’ costumes. “Disturbing the peace and several other things.”
“With intent to do malicious mischief,” the man who spoke balanced himself on his heels and swung a chrysanthemum to and fro by the stem.
The minister was walking uneasily about. The bride was on a sofa where she had been lifted to come out of her faint.
In a burst of impatience Ted whispered to Mabel, whom, for some reason, he did not appear at all surprised to see there: “Where’s Dorothy?”