"But if he asks you to his you must ask him back."
"You don't want me to invite folks I don't want?" William said in the voice of one goaded against his will into exasperation.
"You must invite people who invite you," said Mrs. Brown firmly, "that's what we always do in parties."
"Then they've got to invite you again and it goes on and on and on," argued William. "Where's the sense of it? I don't like Johnnie Brent an' he don't like me, an' if we go on inviting each other an' our mothers go on making us go, it'll go on and on and on. Where's the sense of it? I only jus' want to know where's the sense of it?"
His logic was unanswerable.
"Well, anyway, William, I'll draw up the list. You can go and play."
William walked away, frowning, with his hands in his pockets.
"Where's the sense of it?" he muttered as he went.
He began to wend his way towards the spot where he, and Douglas, and Ginger, and Henry met daily in order to wile away the hours of the Christmas holidays. At present they lived and moved and had their being in the characters of Indian Chiefs.
As William walked down the back street, which led by a short cut to their meeting-place, he unconsciously assumed an arrogant strut, suggestive of some warrior prince surrounded by his gallant braves.