“And I remember well how you fixed it up,” answered Denny, gallantly. “This is a bit like the old days; isn’t it? When I used to eat you out of house and home, when Len would fetch me into your house to tempt me appetite,” and he chuckled at the recollection. “Freddie, you were only a tot then, but you could climb on my knee right smart. I guess you were always a romp.” This last was plainly intended as a compliment, for Denny smiled at Freda as she handed him his steaming coffee.
If the young folks thought that by special attention to Denny and his wants at the table they might get an inkling of the mystery that had so excited the old man they were disappointed, for he never betrayed a word of it, and only an occasional absent look in his sober gray eyes betokened anything unusual.
He scarcely took time to swallow the tempting food, however, when he jumped up and declared he could not stay another minute, although Cora, Freda, and Mrs. Lewis urged him to remain.
“I must run—I really must,” he insisted, “and mind what I tell you,” to Freda and Cora, “look out for yourselves!”
CHAPTER XIV
AN ANGRY DRUGGIST
“We didn’t want to make a fuss over it before the boys,” Cora explained to a number of the girls, who, next morning, were seated about the bungalow side porch, trying to get in a few stitches of embroidery. “They would be sure to go straight at those land fellows, and we think—Denny and all of us—that the best way to do is to watch them carefully for a while.”
“But what happened?” demanded Lottie, impatiently.