"Gracious! Are you trying to make conversation?" said Dolly, beginning to laugh, "Don't sit on the edge of your chairs, boys, like monkeys on a stick; sit back and be comfortable."
Happy Mather and Tacks appeared with gloomy ceremony.
"Is this the first time you ever paid a call?" said the young lady when Happy had opened the question of the family health. "What is the matter with you boys? You look too ridiculous for words; sit back, stick your hands in your pockets, and look natural."
Again the bell rang and the sounds of the third relay were heard in the hall. Miss Dolly glanced quickly at the four solemnities and then suspiciously out of the window where relays four and five were lurking under the trees, suppressed a smile, and came to a sudden decision.
"My mother and father are in perfect health, my sister is in perfect health, how are yours?" she said, as Puffy Ellis started to clear his throat. "No, no, don't sit down. You're much too imposing. Mr. Crocker, you take one side of the fireplace and Mr. Ellis the other, and please don't look so gawky. You aren't really afraid of one little girl, are you? And by the way, Charlie Lazelle, go out on the porch and call in the others."
"Others?" said the Gutter Pup, trying to save the day by his cat-and-cream expression.
"The others who are hiding under the willow," said Dolly lightly. "Hurry up, because it's six o'clock and Daddy will be back any moment. He's such a bear about the boys I go with. It's a marvelous chance for him to look you over. Joe Crocker, sit down at the piano."
"On Sunday?" said Joe, startled out of his attitude.
"Don't worry, we're not going to dance. We're going to make a good impression on father."
When Mr. Travers drew up ten minutes later he beheld eleven sheepish young gentlemen huddled in a circle in the middle of the parlor intoning from hymnbooks the measures which Joe Crocker pounded out from the piano under the solemn inspection of Miss Dolly Travers.