"If you didn't, it
was your own fault. I took away hardly any chairs, and I arranged several
splendid corners just on purpose for those who wished to sit."
"As there were a couple of hundred people, and not over a couple of dozen
chairs--" began Chester, dryly.
But Martha interrupted him. "I never saw such a set. Just as if you
hadn't been going to affairs like this one all your lives,--and Ellen,
especially, must have been at hundreds of them in Washington,--and now
you're all disgusted with having to bear up under just one little
informal--"
"Cheer up, my children," called Burns, reentering. He was garbed in
white, which his guests saw after a moment to be a freshly laundered
surgical gown, covering him from head to foot, the sleeves reaching only
to his elbows, beneath which his bare arms gleamed sturdily. He bore a
wire broiler in one hand, and a platter of something in the other, and
his face wore an expression of content.
"Beefsteak, by all that's crazy!" shouted James Macauley, eying the
generous expanse of raw meat upon the platter with undisguised delight.
He forgot his sulkiness in an instant, and slapped his friend upon the
back with a resounding blow. "Bully for Red!" he cried.
"Well, well! Of all the wild ideas!" murmured Arthur Chester. But he sat
up in his chair, and his expression grew definitely more cheerful.
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