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But Sam neither closed the door nor advanced into the room. Instead, he held his position, glancing from one to another of his chums. Poke laughed nervously; Step fell to rubbing his jaw with a quaint air of perplexity. The Trojan and Herman instinctively fell back a pace, as if expecting attack. Sam’s face was white, but his eyes were blazing.

There was another pause, which seemed very long to all the boys, watching the newcomer, and perceiving more or less clearly that he was having a hard fight to keep his self-control. Then, of a sudden, Sam turned on his heel, and strode out, slamming the door behind him, and leaving a party no longer in a mood for private theatricals.

The Trojan cast his shawl into a corner; Herman dropped weakly into a chair. Poke, staring at the door beyond which Sam had vanished, spoke for all of them.

“Gee—minee!” he quavered. “But who’d ’a’ thought he’d take it as hard as all that?”

Meanwhile Sam was hurrying along the street. When he came to his father’s place, he turned in at the big gate, but instead of going to the house marched to the barn. There in a combined harness room and workshop he came upon Lon Gates, coachman, chauffeur, gardener and general factotum of the Parker household, and also often counsellor and sometimes consoler of its youngest member.