“No, you old hypocrite, maybe you didn’t; but I saw you looking around for a tree.”
He laughed, and was on the point of sending a potato to its final resting-place, when they both heard a cry—a high, terrified cry that came through the dusk. He started up.
“That’s not Janey?” he asked.
“No; she’s still in town taking her music lesson.”
“Who is it, then?” he asked quickly.
They heard the patter of running feet on the path outside; they heard the sound of feet landing after a leap to the porch; they heard someone banging frantically on the front door. Ben Crosby called out:
“What’s the matter?”
A flood of words in a strange tongue answered him.
“It’s Velvet Pants,” he exclaimed, and flung open the door. The small man, breathless, tumbled in.
“What in the name of thunderation?” demanded Ben Crosby. The small man pointed through the open door with quivering fingers.