I shook hands with the rest of them. There were six more, four boys and two girls. They formed a considerable congregation as they stood eyeing me with inquiring glances. Madge was the first to speak.
"I wondered all along if he would take it as a joke or not, and you see he hasn't. I thought all the time that it was a risky thing to do."
"I like that! You keep your thoughts to yourself then. It was you proposed it. You said you'd been reading about something of the kind in a story, and you voted for our advertising ourselves for a lark."
The speaker was the biggest boy, a good-looking youngster, with sallow cheeks and shrewd black eyes.
"But, Rupert, I never meant it to go so far as this."
"How far did you mean it to go then? It was your idea all through. You sent in the advertisement, you wrote the letters, and now he's here. If you didn't mean it, why didn't you stop his coming?"
"Rupert!"
The girls cheeks were crimson. Bessie interposed.
"The thing is that as he is here it's no good worrying about whose fault it is. We shall simply have to make the best of it." Then, to me, "I suppose you really have come to stay?"
"I confess that I had some notion of the kind--to spend an old-fashioned Christmas."