Wrenn sat still and frightened, like a shipwrecked professor on
a raft with two gamblers and a press-agent, though Nelly was
smiling encouragingly at him from the couch where she had
started her embroidery--a large Christmas lamp mat for the wife
of the Presbyterian pastor at Upton's Grove.
"Don't you wish your little friend Horatio Hood Teddem was here
to play with you?" remarked Tom.
"I _do_ not," declared Mrs. Arty. "Still, there was one thing
about Horatio. I never had to look up his account to find out
how much he owed me. He stopped calling me, Little Buttercup,
when he owed me ten dollars, and he even stopped slamming the
front door when he got up to twenty. O Mr. Wrenn, did I ever
tell you about the time I asked him if he wanted to have Annie
sweep--"
"Gerty!" protested Miss Proudfoot, while Nelly, on the couch,
ejaculated mechanically, "That story!" but Mrs. Arty chuckled
fatly, and continued:
"I asked him if he wanted me to have Annie sweep his nightshirt
when she swept his room. He changed it next day.
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