"Was it your fudge? I'm awfully sorry," said the boy across. "I guess Whoop-la sat in it."
"I guess so too," returned Happie with a laugh. "It's hard luck after broiling one's face to make it. Hard luck for you, too, because we'd have offered you some if it hadn't been spoiled."
"That's noble of you, but I'm afraid you wouldn't, because I shouldn't have knocked on your dumb waiter door, and so we wouldn't have met if Whoop-la hadn't gone over. That is, we shouldn't have met till after you had eaten up all the fudge. Of course we were bound to scrape acquaintance. Would you mind handing me Whoop-la?" The boy bowed as he spoke, and his eyes laughed in spite of his preternaturally solemn manner.
"Such a name for a cat!" exclaimed Bob. He picked up the tiger cat and passed him across to his master, leaning well over the ledge of the dumb waiter to do so. "Suppose you come around to see us tonight," Bob suggested. "We generally study and recite evenings, but to-night is Saturday, and a holiday. Won't you come?"
"I suppose the correct thing is for you to call on me first, you being the oldest—no, the older inhabitant, but I'll waive ceremony. I'd better waive it, because there isn't anything in this flat but bedlam—boxes and chairs you can't tell apart, burlap, and excelsior. I couldn't very well ask you over. My mother and younger brother haven't come yet, so I'm a little lonely. I will come around, if you don't mind, and thank you for asking me." The boy received his cat with hands so considerate of cat-nerves that the Scollard girls, noting, approved of him at once.
"Just give us time to scurry the dishes away," laughed Happie. "We're are own servants, and we couldn't entertain you while we were at work. Give us half an hour for finishing up, and then come."
"It would entertain me very much to watch you work," said this queer boy, "but I'll wait. Good-bye for thirty harrowing minutes. My watch goes fast; you won't mind?"
The Scollards laughed as Bob shut the dumb waiter door.
"He's a character," cried Bob, elated at the prospect of his visitor.
Mrs. Scollard bore off Penny to bed, which she shared with her mother, and lying down beside the baby for her nightly story-telling, fell asleep beside her from sheer exhaustion.