Now there were girls in the neighbourhood as well as boys.  By a mysterious invitation they had been summoned to the home of one of their number, a small cripple, and were there at the very moment rejoicing in all manner of festivities.  Nobody knew how it had happened, nor where the good things came from, except the little girl who was their hostess, and wild horses could not have dragged the wonderful secret from her.  Brown himself, making merry with his boys, remembered the girls with a comfortable feeling at his heart that for once, at least, a goodly number of people, young and old, were happier than they had ever been before in their lives on Thanksgiving Day.

As for his own immediate entertaining the revel now began—­no lesser word describes it.  If, before the departure of his dinner guests, Brown had experienced a slight feeling of fatigue, it disappeared with the pleasure of seeing his present company disport themselves.  They were not in the least afraid of him—­how should they be, when he had spent months in the winning of their confidence and affection by every clever wile known to the genuine boy lover?  That they respected him was plainly shown by the fact that, ill trained at home as most of them had been, with him they never overstepped certain bounds.  At the lifting of a finger he could command their attention, though the moment before their boisterousness had known no limits.

If the earlier guests had been surprisingly rapid in their consumption of the dinner, these later ones were startlingly so.  Like grain before a flock of hungry birds, like ice beneath a bonfire, the viands, lavishly provided though they had been, melted away in almost the twinkling of an eye.  And it was precisely as the last enormous mouthful of cherry pie vanished down Jiggers Quigg’s happy throat that the unexpected happened.

IX

BROWN’S UNBIDDEN GUESTS

The front door, opening directly into the living-room, with its long table, and its flashing fire lighting the eager faces round it—­nobody had thought of or bothered to make any other light in that room—­was flung open by a fur-gloved hand, and a large figure appeared in the doorway.  A ruddy face looked in upon the scene.  This face possessed a pair of keen gray eyes, a distinguished nose, and a determined mouth beneath a close-trimmed moustache with flecks of gray in it.

Brown sprang up.  “Doctor Brainard!” he cried joyfully, and came forward with outstretched hand.

The unexpected guest advanced.  Behind him appeared others.  To the dazed and gazing boys these people might have come from Greenland, so enveloped were they in defences against the cold.  Motor coats of rich fur, furry hats and caps, floating silken veils, muffs, rugs—­wherever they came from they could not have minded coming, sharp as was the November air outside, as the boys, who had been hanging about the house since the first approach of twilight, well knew.