Part 20 (2/2)
”How'll I get him out?”
”Tell him I want to see him. He'll think something has happened to 'Rill or Lottie. I don't care if he is scared. It may do him good.”
”I'll go around by the barroom door,” said the young engineer, for they had come to the front entrance of the hotel.
Lights were blazing all over the lower floor of the sprawling building; but from the left of the front door came the sound of dancing. Some of the windows were open and the shades were up. Janice, standing in the darkness of the porch, could see the dancers pa.s.sing back and forth before the windows.
By the appearance of those she saw, she judged that the girls and women were mostly of the mill-hand cla.s.s, and were from Middletown and Millhampton. She knew the men of the party were of the same cla.s.s.
The tavern yard was full of all manner of vehicles, including huge party wagons which carried two dozen pa.s.sengers or more. There was a big crowd.
Janice felt, after all, as though she had urged Frank Bowman into the lion's den! The dancers were a rough set. She left the front porch after a while and stole around to the barroom door.
The door was wide open, but there was a half-screen swinging in the opening which hid all but the legs and feet of the men standing at the bar. Here the voices were much plainer. There were a few boys hanging about the doorway, late as the hour was. Janice was smitten with the thought that Marty's boys' club, the foundation society of the Public Library and Reading Room, would better be after these youngsters.
”Why, Simeon Howell!” she exclaimed suddenly. ”You ought not to be here. I don't believe your mother knows where you are.”
The other boys, who were ragam.u.f.fins, giggled at this, and one said to young Howell:
”Aw, Sim! Yer mother don't know yer out, does she? Better run home, Simmy, or she'll spank ye.”
Simeon muttered something not very complimentary to Janice, and moved away. The Howells lived on Hillside Avenue and he was afraid Janice would tell his mother of this escapade.
Suddenly a burst of voices proclaimed trouble in the barroom. She heard Frank Bowman's voice, high-pitched and angry:
”Then give him his violin! You've no right to it. I'll take him away all right; but the violin goes, too!”
”No, we want the fiddle. He was to play for us,” said a harsh voice.
”There is another feller here can play instead. But we want both violins.”
”None of that!” snapped the engineer. ”Give me that!”
There was a momentary struggle near the flapping screen. Suddenly Hopewell Drugg, very much disheveled, half reeled through the door; but somebody pulled him back.
”Aw, don't go so early, Hopewell. You're your own man, ain't ye?
Don't let this white-haired kid boss you.”
”Let him alone, Joe Bodley!” commanded Bowman again, and Janice, shaking on the porch, knew that it must be the barkeeper who had interfered with Hopewell Drugg's escape.
The girl was terror-stricken; but she was indignant, too. She shrank from facing the half-intoxicated crowd in the room just as she would have trembled at the thought of entering a cage of lions.
Nevertheless, she put her hand against the swinging screen, pushed it open, and stepped inside the tavern door.
CHAPTER XIV
A DECLARATION OF WAR
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