“Well, do go in there!” she cried; “there isn’t a single thing on the table to eat yet, unless you eat the plates, and I don’t believe even you will want those,” and she put the sugar-box and everything else out of sight. Then, placing her viands upon her tiny tray, she carried them into the dining room, meanwhile keeping one eye on Ned. But more than one eye was required to watch that little black imp, as Denise soon found, for he bobbed about like a monkey, and behaved in altogether a disgraceful manner for an invited guest. At last she became indignant and said: “I should think you’d be ashamed of yourself to act so! You’ve just _got_ to wait till it is served, and then you may all come, and----oh, dear! here they all come this minute, and it’s all because you would come before the time you were told to,” and the distracted little hostess looked nearly desperate as three more of her four-footed guests appeared before the hours named in their invitations. “Sailor, charge!” “Beauty, lie down at once!” and “Tan, come here!” were the orders quickly issued, “and you,” turning to Ned, with a look calculated to strike terror to his heart, “go straight back to the kitchen! You are not fit to come to the table, and there isn’t a single thing left in there for you to eat.” But alas! she had entirely forgotten the Saratoga potatoes, which were still merrily sizzling in the tiny frying-pan. With a final defiant jump Ned skipped through the door, and, literally “following his nose,” made straight for the little stove. To make a dive for the potatoes, whose tempting odor had proved too much for him, was only a second’s work, and then came the climax. A squeal, a wild leap, and the hot morsel was dropped as the scamp flew across the kitchen and out of the door, upsetting the cooking-table and everything else in his way, to rush across the lawn as though pursued by a wild beast. With Tan and the dogs close upon her heels, Denise rushed into the kitchen and beheld the wreck. One glance at the frying-pan, now calmly reposing in the middle of the floor, explained all. And I wish to add that ever after Ned stood in very wholesome awe of that little stove, and would walk a long way around the kitchen in order to avoid going near it. OLD NICK’S CHRISTMAS OLD NICK’S CHRISTMAS CHAPTER I “WHERE IS OLD NICK?” “Good-by!” “Good-by!” “Hope you’ll have a good time!” “Merry Christmas beforehand!” “Happy New Year, too!” “Hope you’ll get _loads_ of pretty things, and no end of goodies which will bear transportation!” cried a dozen or more girls as they bade good-by to one of their schoolmates just leaving for her Christmas holidays.