THE ROOM--AND BILLY For the first fifteen minutes after Billy's arrival conversation was a fitful thing made up mostly of a merry monologue on the part of Billy herself, interspersed with somewhat dazed replies from one after another of her auditors as she talked to them in turn.

No one thought to ask if she cared to go up to her room, and during the entire fifteen minutes Billy sat on the floor with Spunk in her lap.

She was still there when the funereal face of Pete appeared in the doorway.

Pete's jaw dropped.
It was plain that only the sternest self-control enabled him to announce dinner, with anything like dignity.

But he managed to stammer out the words, and then turn loftily away.