Mr. Brown was returning to his books, and Theodore took the bill with heightened colour. "I hope, sir," he said, "that this entirely establishes my honesty in your mind?" "I never doubted it," said Mr. Brown. "You took the affair a little too hard. Remember, you discharged yourself. If you should want your job back again next Spring, I'll try to let you have it. I don't think you will ever lose another bill." "Thank you, sir," said Theodore, and passed out. He sprang into the cart beside Margaret, and gave the astonished Patsy a vigourous slap with the lines. "Why, what's the matter?" said Margaret. "Your eyes are as shiny, and your cheeks as red----" "I don't mind telling you the story now," said Theodore. "I went into that store wearing convict's stripes, figuratively speaking, and I've come out without 'em. My character is cleared, but I've a notion it will take some time for my shaved hair and my self-respect to grow again." CHAPTER XXI HALLOWE'EN "Never since the world began Has been such repartee; And never till the next begins Will greater things be done by man Than this same company." "I'M going to have a party to-night," announced Theodore, coming into the study on a morning in late October. Mrs. Lee and the two girls looked up from their work in astonishment. "To-night!" they said in chorus. "I think it's about my turn to 'entertain,'" went on Ted in a mock aggrieved tone. "Father opened the house to the Guild last week, mother had the Mothers' Meeting here yesterday, Beatrice has company all the time, and I'm still picking peanut shells, left from Miss Billy's Lawn Fête, out of the grass. Don't you think that I deserve a 'function' to-night?" "It seems to me that your arrangements are being made rather late in the day," laughed Mrs. Lee. "One usually plans for a party a day or two beforehand." "Not for this kind of an entertainment," explained Theodore. "This is a sudden inspiration of mine--planned 'on the spur of the instant,' as Mrs. Canary would say. If you'll let me use the gasoline range to-night, that's all I'll ask. I'm going to give a pancake party." "What's a pancake party?" inquired Miss Billy. "Hist!" returned Theodore mysteriously. "'Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ascalon,' is my motto. The ghosts and the witches walk abroad to-night, and we shall fitly celebrate. So much you shall know and no more. Miss Billy, if you offer to make me a rarebit in your chafing dish to-night, I shall courteously accept; and mother, a bottle of stuffed olives, three bunches of radishes and a fruit cake would be delicate attentions on your part." "Whom are you going to invite?" asked Beatrice. "Oh, Margaret, of course, and Lindsay, and our friend John Thomas, and I suppose Mary Jane." "But that won't make enough men to go around." "Oh, you and Mary Jane can divide Mr. Lindsay," said Ted carelessly. "He's big enough to make two."