Page:Daskam--The imp and the angel.djvu/104

The Imp's Matinée that he knew that the two heads were not all that he had paid twenty-five cents to behold, his hopes rose again.

He panted through the drive-way and stopped to get his breath at the hotel steps. The Hungarian Gypsy band was playing on the broad piazza, and everybody was sitting there, laughing and chatting. There were at least a hundred people, and they all sat perfectly still and stared, when a dirty little boy dashed up the steps and cried wildly at them,

"Will you please to come to the theatre? Oh, won't you come to the theatre? Won't thirty of you come to the theatre with me?"

The Tall Young Man in white tennis flannels advanced and grinned in his kindly way at the Imp.

"What's all this? What's up?" he inquired. The Imp remembered his manners and took off his red polo-cap.

"How do you do?" he asked politely. The tall young man replied that he was quite well, rather better than usual in fact.

"Did I understand you to invite me to the theatre?" he added. Oh, ceremony takes up so 80