All you'll have to do
will be to lie down with your head on a stone, and have one of us
girls get ready to hit you with a club."
"If you girls are going to manage the club," remarked the boy,
with masculine scorn, "I'd much rather have you try to hit me, for
then I'd be safe."
"That's a very old joke, Alan," said Jean, with disgust; "and
besides, it isn't polite. You ought to be proud to be asked to
have a part in our grand play."
"Will you act, or won't you?" demanded Polly sternly, as she
seized him by his short, thick hair.
"Oh, anything to get peace," groaned Alan.
"Say yes, then."
"Yes."
"Very well. Now, you are to be ready whenever we want you; you are
to do just what we want, and do it in just the way we want. Do you
promise?"
"Yes, yes! But do hurry up and play something, or it will be dark
before you begin."
"There!" said Polly, nodding triumphantly to the girls as she
released him. "Didn't I tell you I'd get him to act?"
"You couldn't bribe him to keep out of it," said Jean, as they
sprang up for their game.
The old attic was a favorite meeting-place for the V, who held
high carnival there, now racing up and down the great floor and
hiding in dark corners behind aged chests and spinning-wheels, now
robing themselves in the time-honored garments which had done duty
for various ancestors of the Hapgood family, and exchanging visits
of mock ceremony, or inviting Mrs.
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