“Stop all autos, send car with young folks back to Bennett’s, sure.” (He did not read the last three words on the paper.)
“Did you ever in all your life know anything so perfectly extraordinary?” said a girl.
“You can turn better right up there,” said Westy. He was a quiet, uncommunicative lad.
The sign was gone from the Bennetts’ gate when the car returned, and the two boys standing in the shadow across the way, saw the party go up the drive and disappear into the house; there was still plenty of time for the festive program.
They never knew what was said on the subject of the sign and the mysterious telegram.
They kept it up at Bennetts’ till long after midnight. They played “Think of a Number,” and “Button, button, who’s got the button?” and wore tissue-paper caps which came out of tinselled snappers, and had ice cream and lady-fingers and macaroons and chicken salad.
When Connover went to bed, exhausted but happy, Mrs. Bennett tripped softly in to say good-night to him and to see that he had plenty of fresh air by “opening the window a little at the top.”
“Isn’t it much better, dearie,” she said, seating herself for a moment on the edge of the bed, “to find your pleasure right here than to be tramping over the country and building bonfires, and getting your clothing all filled with smoke from smudge signals, or whatever they call them, and catching your death of cold playing with searchlights, like that Blakeley boy up on the hill? It’s just a foolish, senseless piece of business, taking a boy’s thoughts away from home, and no good can ever come of it.”