ladies jump in their chairs.
They had swarmed over the place as if they owned it, had talked and
laughed and joked and shouted, all in a perfectly agreeable way which
woke up Boswell's as if it were in the centre of somewhere instead of
off in the mountains. They had scrawled fourteen vigorous scrawls upon
the register and made it necessary to turn the page, this of itself
affording the clerk a satisfaction quite out of proportion to the
apparent unimportance of the incident. Then they had gone gayly in to
supper, had sat about two stainless tables close by the open windows,
and had been waited upon by both Sue and Tim in such alert fashion that
their plates arrived almost before they had unfurled their napkins.

Out in the kitchen, crimson-cheeked and solicitous, Mrs. Boswell had
sent in relays of broiled chicken, young and tender, browned as only
artists of her rank can brown them, flanked by potatoes cooked in a way
known only to herself. These were two of her "specialties," which the
elderly ladies were accustomed to enjoy without mentioning it. Pickles
and jellies such as the fourteen men had tasted only in childhood
accompanied these dishes, and the little hot rolls came on in piles
which melted away before the delighted attacks of the hungry guests; so
that the kitchen itself became alarmed, and cut the elderly ladies a
trifle short, at which complaints were promptly filed, though it was the
first time such a shortage had occurred.

Other toothsome dishes followed and were partaken of with such zest and
so many frank expressions of approval that Sue and Tim carried to the
kitchen reports which forced their mother to ask them to stop, lest she
lose her head. When the amber coffee with a fine cheese and crisp
toasted wafers ended the meal, the guests were in such a state of
satisfaction that Tom, though he did not know it, had acquired with them
his first "pull."

He did not know it--not then. He only knew that they were very cordial
with him, asking him a good many interested questions, and that one
requested to be shown rooms, remarking that his wife and children might
like to run out for a little while before the summer was over. Most of
them looked back at the Inn as the automobiles bore them away, and one
waved his cigar genially at Tom standing on the top step.

He was standing on the top step again the next morning when Mr. Perkins
returned. Tom was wishing Perkins had been there the night before, to
se