whom his father, perhaps without realizing his cruelty, treated as a
child. March took it hard that he should be made to suffer in the
presence of a co-ordinate power like himself, and began to dislike the
old man out of proportion to his offence, which might have been mere want
of taste, or an effect of mere embarrassment before him. But evidently,
whatever rebellion his daughters had carried through against him, he had
kept his dominion over this gentle spirit unbroken. March did not choose
to make any response, but to let him continue, if he would, entirely upon
his own impulse.




II.

A silence followed, of rather painful length. It was broken by the cheery
voice of Fulkerson, sent before him to herald Fulkerson's cheery person.
"Well, I suppose you've got the glorious success of 'Every Other Week'
down pretty cold in your talk by this time. I should have been up sooner
to join you, but I was nipping a man for the last page of the cover. I
guess we'll have to let the Muse have that for an advertisement instead
of a poem the next time, March. Well, the old gentleman given you boys
your scolding?" The person of Fulkerson had got into the room long before
he reached this question, and had planted itself astride a chair.
Fulkerson looked over the chairback, now at March, and now at the elder
Dryfoos as he spoke.

March answered him. "I guess we must have been waiting for you,
Fulkerson. At any rate, we hadn't got to the scolding yet."