Wasn't it what her mother said to her a dozen times a day? Now be a good little girl and have a good time. How could you be a good little girl and have a good time at the same time? The irony of it, when anybody with a grain of sense would know that the two do not go hand in hand! If she had stayed home that afternoon, she would have been good, but she would not have had a good time. As it was, she had had a good time, but she had not been good. So there you are!
The gate clicked, but it was not Henry, for Gladys offered the conciliatory greeting, "Hello, Willie." So it must be Willie Jones coming through their yard to get to his own. Margery wondered whether Gladys would be able to work him as she had worked Henry. Margery thought not, but if she were—well, she, Margery Blair, would have very little more to say to Willie Jones.
When, Margery judged, Willie Jones was passing the porch, Gladys asked in her suavest tones, "Oh, Willie, did you see Margery, too?"
For a moment Willie did not answer, and Margery, kneeling on the floor behind the window curtain, held her breath. Then, apparently without slowing his pace, Willie Jones grunted out in his roughest manner:
"Aw, go on! You don't know what you're talkin' about!"
"Willie Jones is just the rudest boy," Gladys informed the twins. "I wouldn't think your mother would let Margery play with him."
But, up-stairs, Margery wept for joy at this evidence of a true and noble heart.
Henry returned from the chase with the interesting news that he had almost caught Freddy Larkin.
"Well, I just pity your poor father," Gladys commented, "if he goes down on the car to-morrow with Freddy Larkin's father."
"Why, Gladys?" chorused the twins anxiously.