Dave, who had taken possession of the most comfortable chair in the room, and was making himself perfectly at home, kindly came to his relief.
“Little Cliff started off all at once, like a sky-rocket,” he explained. “Never saw anything like the way he sprouted up, eh, Bob? Could almost see him growing. What! I’m fatter than ever, you say, Cranny? Oh, how can you be so cruel?—No. I don’t weigh three hundred pounds, either.”
“Not yet, you mean,” chuckled Cranny, taking his eyes reluctantly from Tom’s blushing face to survey the ample proportions of the historian and writer. “My goodness, I shouldn’t want you to fall on me.”
“It’s true that I’m not a featherweight any more,” sighed Dave. “What’s that, Cranny?—is my history of the Rambler Club finished yet? Oh, my, no—only about twelve hundred pages of it. But, Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont, I fear our arrival is most inopportune; we are delaying your dinner.”
“Oh, just listen to him!” cried Cranny, gleefully. “If you chaps don’t grub with us there’ll be the biggest scrap this part of Tacoma has ever seen.”
The Beaumonts would not listen to any excuses. There was a vast amount of flurry and excitement—of everybody getting in everybody else’s way. The distracted serving maid saved herself from mental collapse only by calling in the chauffeur as assistant. And then the cook, by some extraordinary process known only to cooks, managed to provide bountifully for everybody.
The table was pretty well crowded; but no one cared for that. There was too much to talk about. As Willie Sloan, with an impish grin, stared from one Rambler to another, Cranny judged that he was favorably impressed.
“And so your next stop is at Border City, in Wyoming?” asked Mr. Beaumont of Bob.
“Yes, sir. And they say it’s a very different Border City from the one we knew. Remember those aviators, Cranny,—father and two sons?”
“At Lone Pine Ranch?”