It
wasn't loud, but so cheery and sweet that Gibson, in the little outer room,
dropped her sewing in her lap. "Thank the Lord!" she said, and wiped her
eyes.
Frick, meanwhile, too excited to hear the doctor call them to come back,
had darted out of the house, with no thought for the rain, but with one
wild desire--to find Joel Pepper. And as he had a perfect faculty for
sprinting, and cut through, with a dash, all the cross-streets, he soon
found himself for the second time that day at the King mansion.
But this second time he was no more fortunate than the first. For although
he was willingly admitted to Mr. King's writing-room, it was to see that
gentleman look up and say with the most genial of smiles:
"Ah, Frick, my boy, well, this time it's all right, isn't it, since I let
Joel go down to you?"
"Joel hasn't been with us," blurted out Frick, Then he leaned against the
big writing-table, speech all gone, for he began to feel terribly tired,
and it had been nothing but one long disappointment all day.
Old Mr. King laid down his pen and looked Frick all over.
"Oh, no, he hasn't," declared Frick, shaking his head dismally; "we haven't
any of us seen him, and Larry Keep has been run over by Mr. MacIlvaine's
tallyho, and most smashed up." Then he stopped suddenly, his cup of woe
being empty.
"The first thing to do is to find Joel," said Mr.
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