Larry, keeping after Joel as well as he could, found him at the head of the back stairs, and gesticulating wildly to "Hurry, you're slow as a snail. Hush, she'll hear you!"
"Who?" cried Larry, breathlessly, as he gained his side.
"Never mind, come along." He hauled him on and into Mother Fisher's room, dashing up to the closet, turned the key with a click, and flung wide the door, "Why, he isn't here!"
"Who?" cried Larry, forgetting all about Van, and not knowing whom he was expected to see.
Joel's teeth were chattering so that he couldn't answer. "He's got out," he managed to say.
"Who?" Larry crowded up closer and peered fearfully into the closet depths.
"Why, Van," cried Joel, impatiently; "oh, well, he's got out some way. Come on," and he turned to go.
"Van!" exclaimed Larry, faintly.
"Yes, I told you so. I shut him up."
"Oh, I thought you meant in your closet," said Larry, the mad race remaining uppermost in his mind to the effect of crowding out other things that now began to assert themselves. "Well, then, he's here now."