"Hullo! here's Pretty!" cried Bobby Hargrew, dancing out behind Laura and Jess. "You're never waiting to beau _me_ home, are you, Mr. Sweet?"
"I--oh--ah----" stammered Purt, in much confusion. "It weally would give me pleasure, Miss Bobby; but I weally have a pwior engagement--ah!"
Just then Hester and Lily came out of the door. Bobby dodged Hester in mock alarm. Lily stopped in the shelter of the doorway to powder her nose, holding up a tiny mirror that she might do it effectively, and then dropping both mirror and "powder rag" into the little "vanity case" she wore pendant from her belt.
Purt Sweet approached Miss Pendleton with a mixture of diffidence and dancing school deportment that made Bobby shriek with laughter.
"Oh, joy!" whispered the latter to Nellie, who appeared next with the Lockwood twins. "Purt has found a shrine before which to lay his heart's devotion. D'ye see _that_?" pointing derisively to Lily and young Sweet turning the first corner.
Hester was strolling away by herself. Nellie said, quickly:
"Let's not go _this_ way. I don't want to meet that girl again to-night."
"Much obliged to you, Nell, for taking my slapping. But Hester never really meant to hit me, after all. You got in the way, you know."
"You'd better behave," said one of the twins admonishingly. "You made this trouble, Bobby."
"There you go!" cried Bobby, with apparent tears. "Nobody loves me; Hester tried to slap me, and Pretty Sweet wouldn't even walk with me. Oh, and say!" she added, with increased hilarity, "what do you suppose the boys are telling about Pretty now?"
"Couldn't say," said Dora Lockwood. "Something ridiculous, I venture to believe."
"It's _funny_," giggled Bobby. "You see, Purt thinks he's really getting whiskers."
"Sure. You watch him next time you have a chance. He's always feeling to see if his side-tapes have sprouted. He _has_ got a little yellow fuzz on his upper lip--honest!
"Well, Purt went into Jimmy Fabro's shop the other day--you know, that hair-cutting place right behind Mr. Betting's store, on the side street? Well, Purt went in and took a chair. Jimmy was alone.
"'What you want--hair cut again this week, Pretty?' asked Jimmy.
"Jimmy grunted, dropped back the chair, muffled Purt up in the towels, and then squinted up and down his victim's cheeks. Finally he mumbled something about being 'right back' and ran into Mr. Belding's and came back with a watchmaker's glass stuck in his eye. Then he squinted up and down Purt's face some more and finally mixed a big mug of lather--and lathered Purt's eyebrows!"