IX. THE DINNER PARTY At noon Toby was thoroughly tired out, for whenever anyone spoke kindly to him Mr. Lord seemed to take a malicious pleasure in giving him extra tasks to do, until Toby began to hope that no one else would pay any attention to him. On this day he was permitted to go to dinner first, and after he returned he was left in charge of the booth. Trade being dull--as it usually was during the dinner hour--he had very little work to do after he had cleaned the glasses and set things to rights generally. When, therefore, he saw the gaunt form of the skeleton emerge from his tent and come toward him he was particularly pleased, for he had begun to think very kindly of the thin man and his fleshy wife. “Well, Toby,” said the skeleton, as he came up to the booth, carefully dusted Mr. Lord's private chair, and sat down very cautiously in it, as if he expected that it would break down under his weight, “I hear you've been making quite a hero of yourself by capturing the monkeys last night.” Toby's freckled face reddened with pleasure as he heard these words, and he stammered out, with considerable difficulty, “I didn't do anything; it was Mr. Stubbs that brought 'em back.” “Mr. Stubbs!” And the skeleton laughed so heartily that Toby was afraid he would dislocate some of his thinly covered joints. “When you was tellin' about Mr. Stubbs yesterday I thought you meant someone belonging to the company. You ought to have seen my wife Lilly shake with laughing when I told her who Mr. Stubbs was!” “Yes,” said Toby, at a loss to know just what to say, “I should think she would shake when she laughs.” “She does,” replied the skeleton. “If you could see her when something funny strikes her you'd think she was one of those big plates of jelly that they have in the bakeshop windows.” And Mr. Treat looked proudly at the gaudy picture which represented his wife in all her monstrosity of flesh. “She's a great woman, Toby, an' she's got a great head.” Toby nodded his head in assent. He would have liked to say something nice regarding Mrs. Treat, but he really did not know what to say, so he simply contented himself and the fond husband by nodding. “She thinks a good deal of you, Toby,” continued the skeleton, as he moved his chair to a position more favorable for him to elevate his feet on the edge of the counter, and placed his handkerchief under him as a cushion; “she's talking of you all the time, and if you wasn't such a little fellow I should begin to be jealous of you--I should, upon my word.” “You're--both--very--good,” stammered Toby, so weighted down by a sense of the honor heaped upon him as to be at a loss for words. “An' she wants to see more of you. She made me come out here now, when she knew Mr. Lord would be away, to tell you that we're goin' to have a little kind of a friendly dinner in our tent tomorrow--she's cooked it all herself, or she's going to--and we want you to come in an' have some with us.”