’Old Peterkin, of course.  Those whom you care for least always come first.’

Peering over the banister Tom Tracy saw Harold when the door was opened, and screaming to his mother at the top of his voice, ’It ain’t old Peterkin, mother; it’s Hall Hastings, come to the front door,’ he ran down the stairs, and confronting the intruder just as he was crossing the threshold, exclaimed: 

’Go ‘long; go back.  You hain’t no business ringin’ the bell as if you was a gentleman.  Go to the kitchen door with the other servants!’

With a thrust of the hand he pushed Harold back and was about to shut the door upon him when, with a quick, dextrous movement, Harold darted past him into the hall, saying, as he did so: 

’Darn you, Tom Tracy, I won’t go to the back kitchen door, and I’m not a servant, and if you call me so again I’ll lick you!’

How the matter would have ended is doubtful, if Mrs. Tracy had not called from the head of the stairs: 

’Thomas!  Thomas Tracy!  I am ashamed of you!  Come to me this minute!  And you, boy, go to the kitchen; or, no—­now you are here, come up stairs, and I’ll tell you what you are to do.’

Her directions were much like those of Dick St. Claire, except that she laid more stress upon the fact that he was not to speak to any one familiarly, but was to be in all respects a machine.  Just what she meant by that Harold did not know; but he hung his cap on a bracket, and taking his place where she told him to stand, watched her admiringly as she went down the staircase, with her peach-blow satin trailing behind her, and followed, by her husband, who looked and felt anxious and ill at ease.

Tom had disappeared, but his younger brother, Jack, who was wholly unlike him, came to Harold’s side, and began telling him what quantities of good things there were in the dining-room and pantry, and that his Uncle Arthur was coming home that night, and his mother was so glad, she cried; then, with a spring he mounted upon the banister of the long staircase and slipped swiftly to the bottom.  Ascending the stairs almost as quickly as he had gone down, he bade Harold try it with him.

‘It’s such fun! and mother won’t care.  I’ve done it forty times,’ he said, as Harold demurred; and then, as the temptation became too strong to be resisted, two boys instead of one rode down the banister and landed in the lower hall, and two pairs of little legs ran nimbly up the stairs just as the door opened and admitted the first arrival.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PARTY.