Before Al could form his mental picture of a face that seemed familiar, a bus-boy, with a heavy tray of soiled dishes, bumped against him.
“Get out o’ the way,” the youth grunted, to Al, and gave him an angry push with his free hand. Al, his balance disturbed, stumbled forward—into the arms of Mr. Parsons at the door.
Struggling, squirming to get out of the powerful grip on his arm and shoulder, Al found himself held as if in a vise.
Suddenly his whole body went limp. His head dropped, his eyes closed. He sagged down, and surprised and disconcerted, imagining that the youth he held might have fainted in his fright, the man released him, lowered him to the floor while he looked up, intending to call for aid.
Behind him another face looked out, the bearded face of the man Al had seen previously in the supply room.
“What’s up?” asked the latter.
“I am!” cried Al, shrilly, as he tensed his muscles, swung free of Mr. Parsons as the latter bent over him. Like the leashed spring of a panther Al’s squirming, swift move took him out of danger.
To cries, to shouts of surprise and of inquiry, Al eluded the grasping hands of a waiter, dodged a diner’s gripping fingers, evaded the move of a man to block him at the door, and was free!
Quick thinking and a ruse had prevailed where strength was not enough to accomplish his wish.
Speeding along, outside, after vaulting the veranda railing, Al quickly located Bob. With a wave of his hand Al signaled. His progress was swift as he scampered across the parking space, between standing automobiles, toward an old barnlike structure backed into the grove. Bob, seeing the wave and Al’s progress, dodged, on his own part, among the cars until he rejoined Al in the open door of the old, dilapidated barn.