"I don't think--but it's just like her," answered Waller, with illogical prejudice.
"My eye! wasn't she a beauty!" laughed Fred, and he picked up a bit of charcoal and began an outline of the wrapper and slippers on the side-wall.
Tomlins, Cranch, and the others had no suggestions to offer. Their minds were too much occupied in wondering what was going to become of them in the morning.
The German band by this time had regained their usual solidity. The leader seemed immensely relieved.
He had evidently expected the next apparition to be a bluecoat with a pair of handcuffs.
"Put their green jackets on 'em," McFudd said to the leader quietly, pointing to the instruments.
"We're much obliged to you and your men for coming up," and he slipped some notes into the leader's hand. "Now get downstairs, every man o' ye, as aisy as if ye were walking on eggs. Cranch, old man, will ye see 'em out, to kape that infernal drum from butting into the Van Tassell's door, or we'll have another hornet's nest. Begorra, there's wan thing very sure--it's little baggage I'LL have to move out."
The next morning a row of six vacant seats stared Miss Ann out of countenance. The outcasts had risen early and had gone to Riley's for their breakfast.
Miss Ann sat at the coffee-urn as stiff and erect as an avenging judge. Lofty purpose and grim determination were written in every line of her face. Mrs.
Van Tassell was not in evidence. Her nerves had been so shattered by the "night's orgy," she had said to Miss Ann, that she should breakfast in her room.
She further notified Miss Teetum that she should at once withdraw her protecting presence from the establishment, and leave it without a distinguished social head, if the dwellers on the top floor remained another day under the same roof with herself.
An ominous silence and depressing gloom seemed. to hang over everybody. Several of the older men pushed back their plates and began drumming oh the table-cloth with their fingers, a far-away look in their eyes. One or two talked in whispers, their coffee untasted.
Old Mr. Lang looked down the line of empty seats and took his place with a dejected air. He was the oldest man in the house and the oldest boarder; this gave him certain privileges, one being to speak his mind.
"I understand," he said, unfolding his napkin and facing. Miss Ann, "that you have ordered the boys out of the house?"
"Yes, I have," snapped out Miss Teetum.
Everybody looked up. No one recognized the tone of her voice, it was so sharp and bitter.
"Why, may I ask?"
"I will not have my house turned into a bear-garden, that's why!"
"That's better than a graveyard," retorted Mr. Lang. "That's what the house would be without them. I can't understand why you object. You sleep in the basement and shouldn't hear a sound; my wife and I sleep under them every night. If we can stand it, you can. You send the boys away, Miss Teetum, and we'll move out."
Miss Ann winced under the shot, but she did not answer.
"Do you mean that you're going to turn the young gentlemen into the street, Miss Ann?" whined Mrs.
Southwark Boggs in an injured tone, from her end of the table. "Are we going to have no young life in the house at all? I won't stay a day after they're gone."
Miss Teetum changed color, but she looked straight ahead of her. She evidently did not want her private affairs discussed at the table.
"I shall want my bill at the end of the week, now that the boys are to leave," remarked the little hunchback to Miss Ann as he bent over her chair.
"Life is dreary enough as it is."
And so the boys stayed on.
Only one room became vacant at the end of the month. That was Mrs. Schuyler Van Tassell's.
