Peter put out his hand and touched Leonore’s dress. Then he rose quickly to his feet. “What is the matter?” he asked.
“Hello,” cried Watts. “Have you come to? Well. Here we are, you see. All the way from Newport to see you in fragments, only to be disappointed. Shake!”
Peter said nothing for a moment. But after he had shaken hands, he said, “It’s very good of you to have thought of me.”
“Oh,” explained Leonore promptly, “I’m always anxious about my friends. Mamma will tell you I am.”
Peter turned to Leonore, who had retired behind her mother. “Such friends are worth having,” he said, with a strong emphasis on “friends.”
Then Leonore came out from behind her mother. “‘How nice he’s stupid,” she thought. “He is Peter Simple, after all.”
“Well,” said Watts, “your friends are nearly dying with hunger and want of sleep, so the best thing we can do, since we needn’t hunt for you in scraps, is to go to the nearest hotel. Where is that?”
“You’ll have to go uptown,” said Peter. “Nothing down here is open at this time.”
“I’m not sleepy,” said Leonore, “but I am so hungry!”
“Serves you right for eating no din—” Watts started to say, but Leonore interjected, in an unusually loud voice. “Can’t you get us something?”