"
He bent over and picked it up, and followed his host inside.
Neither of them said anything as they went upstairs.
"Here's your room," Allan offered, showing it politely.
"So it is," murmured John in a quite expressionless voice, looking
at it without seeming to know how to enter.
"It's to live in, you know," Allan suggested.
At this broad hint John went in and put his suitcase on the bed. He
still appeared to be in more or less of a trance-state.
"If we'd known, we'd have tied a little white ribbon here and there,
and arranged a rice-cascade--a shower, isn't it? or something,"
continued his host, amiably. "Awfully sorry, old chap, but you
shouldn't have been so darn secretive. But we'll do our best--"
John awoke at this, and caught up a small pink pincushion which sat
in the mathematical middle of his dresser, and threw it. It didn't
hit Allan, because he dodged.
"That's one of Phyllis' favorite pincushions," he warned John from
outside the door. "I say, Johnny, this isn't any way to repay
hospitality."
He went on down the stair, and John could see his shoulders shaking.
"They've both got too confounded much sense of humor," said John
bitterly.
But he went out and picked up the pincushion just the same, and
addressed himself to the methodical unpacking of his suitcase.
"Oh, I forgot! Congratulations!" Allan called cheerily up from the
stair-foot.
John, casting collars automatically from suitcase to dresser-top,
growled.
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