Curtis turned on him in a towering passion. "You let me alone, you grocer's boy, you! What business is it of yours?"
"I may be a grocer's boy," said Jack, feeling himself wonder fully cool, as the other's anger raged, "but I know something of good manners, p'raps, and we're scaring that lady to death."
Curtis Park was dreadfully proud of his manners, and he would have stopped there, but as it again occurred to him that this was the son of a grocer who was setting up to be an authority, he cried angrily:
"You're a great one to teach me manners," and he dashed down the stairs and was out of the house.
"I wish I'd stopped him," said Jack to himself. "Hello, here's the whole mob"—as all the boys except Joel and David, and of course Porter, now plunged out to do the same thing. "No, you don't." He squared up in front of the staircase. "Not one of you goes down there."
They brought up with a gasp. At that instant a cheery voice in the hall below rang out:
"Hello, boys; I knew you were to be here tonight. Don't you want to come with me to the fire?" It was Hamilton Dyce to whom the voice belonged.
And in five minutes Hamilton Dyce set forth, with Mrs. Sterling's complete approval; a string of boys in his wake, including little Porter, who was parted from Gibson only on her hearing her mistress say, "Yes, indeed, he can go; but do look out for him."
Mr. Dyce nodded over to her couch. "Come on, you little rascal"—to
Porter—"you stick close to me or—" he didn't finish the sentence.
Gibson, pale, and shaking in every limb, but seeing no reason to regret that she had hung on to little Porter's jacket, sank into a chair, and simply looked at her mistress.