"Storm will be at Kidd's Pines for lunch," went on my fellow-conspirator (I took it for granted he would be that!), "eating Dead Sea Apples."
"I don't believe it!" I contradicted. "Pat would hardly be equal to meeting him, with that nosebud and those eyes. He'll have escaped into the wilderness--his own backyard, probably. It's the safest and most retired place there is to have a Berserker rage in. I'll word my note so that he'll understand we're on the salvage dodge. Then he'll come like an arrow shot from the bow."
"Car permitting!" said Jack; but he was really sympathetic of course, or he wouldn't have been Jack.
Peter did come, and it was more complicated than I had thought, leading up to the subject, because as I've told you, P. S. is as reserved as a Leyden drop--if that's the name for it: don't you know, it falls into a jar full of something or other and instantly hardens on the outside, which sets up a great strain, and you have to be careful in touching it for fear it flies to bits? However, I began with Larry and Mrs. Shuster. He hadn't heard about them, for he had been advised in a note from his employeress that he needn't come over till she sent for him (I suppose _that_ was to please Caspian and keep the hated rival out of the way till the creature could rush back). Peter didn't laugh at all, except just at first when I got off my _mot_ about the marshmallow kiss. He seemed to think, not about the funny part of such an entanglement for Larry, but about the horrid part of it for Pat. And then, when I had got him quite melted and human, I blurted out: "The worst of it is, poor little Patsey has sacrificed herself to save her father, because _she_ thought he'd sacrificed himself to save her, or something of that sort."
"What do you mean?" asked Peter, not able to wait till I had finished swallowing heavily.
"She's promised to marry a man she doesn't even _like_," I said. "Mr. Caspian."
You ought to have seen his face! His lips tightened, and his eyes simply blazed. I almost thought in another second my Leyden drop _would_ fly to bits! But Peter isn't really that sort of badly regulated drop.
"Caspian's cursed money," he remarked, when he felt able to speak.
"Yes," I replied. "The poor girl said that she wished money were extinct. I wish his were, anyhow!"