"Didn't I tell you she'd duck?" he demanded triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you so?"
"Aw shut up!" growled Nat in pardonable anger.
"Ha! ha!" laughed his brother.
"Well, you're enough to hoodoo the whole thing," retorted Nat.
But Ned simply had to laugh—he couldn't help it, and when Dorothy and Nat took their places again in the machine Ned was chuckling and gasping in a manner that threatened to do serious damage to his entire vocal apparatus.
"It would have been a pity to have disappointed you in your fun," remarked Nat sarcastically after a particularly gleeful yelp from Ned. "What you would have missed had she come!"
"But I can't understand it," said Dorothy. "There is no other train until eight o'clock to-night."
"And that's a local that stops at every white-washed fence," added Nat.
"Oh, well, then she'll have plenty of time to think of the fine dinner she has missed," went on his brother. "Of all mean traits, I count that of being late the very meanest a nice girl can have."
"Oh, so then she is nice?" inquired Dorothy with a smile.