"Let me, Ben," he cried, "sit with you!" his little pale face all aglow.
"Oh, we can't have that boy," said Madam Van Ruypen, decidedly.
Ben's ruddy face went quite pale. "I wish we might," he said, fixing his blue eyes on the Roman nose and white puffs.
"Oh, no, indeed," said Madam Van Ruypen, shaking the big white puffs more decidedly yet. "You see for yourself there are seven seats. Any more would be quite uncomfortable."
"I don't need so much room," said Ben, shoving his chair.
"Nor I," said Jasper. "Dear me, it isn't necessary that I have this great big thing. It's that which takes up so much room."
"Oh, yes, you do, Jasper," said Polly, quite alarmed at his efforts to move; "you must keep that chair, at any rate."
Ben looked over at Pickering in great trouble. Meantime he held Pip's nervous fingers fast.
"I don't see," said Pickering, swallowing something that seemed to choke in his throat, "why we can't all move up, just a bit, you know," beginning on his own chair—"or else, why, I'll quit and go to another table."
"Oh, no, you shan't, Pick," declared Jasper, "not a bit of it;" he looked so distressed at the mere thought that Polly beseechingly raised her eyes to the stately, forbidding old face.