Part 10 (2/2)
”I--I guess he did,” admitted President Billy.
”I'll settle with him tomorrow,” nodded Teddy, swelling out his chest.
”Did you tell him you were going to have a supper up here?”
asked Phil.
”He knows all about it. You need not worry about the train going away without you. Mr. Sparling said you had a short run tonight, and that the last section would not pull out until three o'clock in the morning. That's honest Injun, Phil.”
”Well, if that is the case, then we'll stay.”
”Hurrah for the Circus Boys!” shouted the cla.s.s, making a rush for seats at the table.
”Ready for the coffee,” announced the President.
Who should come in at that moment, with a steaming coffeepot, but the Widow Cahill.
”Are you in this, too?” Teddy demanded.
”I am afraid I am,” laughed Mrs. Cahill. ”The boys needed some grown-ups to help them out.”
”You're no friend of mine, then. I'll--”
”But you are going to have some of those mola.s.ses cookies that I told you I baked for you--”
”Cookies? Where?” exclaimed Teddy, forgetting his anger instantly.
”Help yourself. There they are.”
”It isn't much of a spread,” apologized the president. ”We have a little of everything and not much of anything--”
”And a good deal of nothing,” added Teddy humorously.
”Everybody eat!” ordered Mrs. Cahill.
They did. Thirty boys with boys' appet.i.tes made the home-cooked spread disappear with marvelous quickness. Each had brought something from home, and Mrs. Cahill, whom they had taken into their confidence two days before the Sparling Shows reached town, had furnished the rest. Everything was cold except the coffee, but the feasters gave no thought to that. It was food, and good wholesome food at that, and the lads were doing full justice to it.
”Say, Phil, that was a wonderful act of yours,” nodded President Billy, while the admiring gaze of the cla.s.s was fixed on Phil Forrest.
”I wish I might learn to do that,” said Walter.
”You? You couldn't ride a wooden rocking horse without falling off and getting a black eye,” jeered Teddy, at which there was a shout of laughter.
”Can you?” cut in Phil.
”I can ride anything from a giraffe to a kangaroo--that is, until I fall off,” Teddy added in a lower voice. ”I rode a greased pig at a country fair once. Anybody who can do that, can sit on a giraffe's neck without slipping off.”
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