Page:Dave Porter and his Classmates.djvu/227

Rh Dave; and then, for the time being, turned his whole attention to the play and gave his enemy no further thought.

Dave and Plum had gotten themselves up with great care, as a German immigrant and a darky, and when one shuffled on the stage after the other there was a good deal of laughing. The playlet revolved around the question of getting situations as a butler and a footman in a fashionable residence, and the lines were humorous in the extreme, and both Dave and Gus got about all the fun possible from them.

"Oh, how very, very funny!" cried Laura, and could hardly control her laughter.

"It certainly is funny," answered Jessie, and then she glanced over to where Vera Rockwell was sitting with some friends. She saw Vera applauding vigorously and it piqued her just a little. She clapped her hands, too, but her heart was not as light as it might have been had Vera not been there.

In the course of the playlet, Dave had to stand on one of the chairs and then mount to the table, to show how he would play the part of a footman. As he got up on a chair there was an unexpected crack, and down went the back part, letting him fall most unexpectedly.

It takes a quick-witted person to do just the right thing in a case of emergency. Dave had not