"What have you boys been about?"
"He wouldn't come out," said Frick, rubbing violently all over his round
cheeks, "and the boys sent me for him, and they're waiting now," he
finished, with a very injured air.
"Eh--oh! and so they sent you for Joel?" said the old gentleman, a light
breaking over his face.
"Yes, sir," said Frick, with a final polish to his countenance on the cuff
of his jacket sleeve, "and won't you please make Joel hurry up and come
out, sir? We've waited so long."
"And is that the way you respond to your invitations, my boy?" said
Grandpapa, with a grim smile. "I shouldn't think you'd receive many at this
rate. So you fell upon him because he asked you to go somewhere, eh?"--with
a keen glance into the black eyes.
"No, sir." said Joel, "but he wouldn't go away, and I told him if he
didn't, I'd come out and pound him. So I had to."
"Um--now let us see," said the old gentleman, reflecting a bit. "So you
kept on at the door, eh, Frick?"
"Yes, sir," said Frick, giving up his countenance as a bad job. "I had to,
'cause the boys are waiting, you see, sir. Won't you please make Joe hurry
up and come?"
"Well, now, Frick, I really believe you better go out and tell those boys
that when Joel gets ready to join them, he'll make his appearance.
Good-bye, Frick." Grandpapa waved him off sociably, and Frick, not exactly
understanding how, or why, found himself on the other side of the big front
door, in the midst of the waiting company from which he had been picked out
as messenger.
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