“What are you driving at?”
“Who’s coming?”
They rained questions upon him; but Herman had no need to answer. Indeed, before he could do so, a hand was laid on the knob, and with no preliminary knock the door was swung. And there in the opening stood Paul Varley, quite at his ease and with a complacent smile on his face.
CHAPTER II
VARLEY GETS ACQUAINTED
There were seconds in which amazement held the members of the Safety First Club speechless and almost motionless.
This open invasion of the privacy of the club was something wholly outside their experience. A boy who didn’t belong might call there, of course, if he wished to see one of the members; but he would be expected to halt outside and hail the club with a shout, or, at the most, to knock at the door and pause outside. And he would be quite as anxious to observe this code as the members would be anxious that he should observe it. A fellow didn’t care to enter where he was not wanted, and if he had been wanted, he would have been elected to membership. That was the way the matter was reasoned out. The conclusion was accepted by everybody in interest. So for one of the town boys to walk up to the door, and throw it open, and look in at the assembled coterie, and do these things calmly and unconcernedly—well, none of the town boys would have thus conducted himself. But there was Paul Varley doing these things quite as a matter of course, thus proving himself not of the town and at the same time bringing embarrassment to the club.
Varley stepped into the room. “Hullo, everybody!” he said cheerily. “Thought I’d drop in for a minute—I’ve heard a lot about this joint of yours, you know.”
There was no response; surprise still held the members of the club.
Varley smiled genially. He was perhaps a year older than any of the Safety First boys, and a great deal more practised in some of the ways of the world. He ran his eye over the room, and spoke again:
“Pretty nifty—what! Snug as a bug in a rug, aren’t you?”