"Phil?" says he. "Phil? Oh, yes! We left him up the road a piece. Maybe
we'd better go after him now."

But old Dillaway had something to say.

"Cap'n," he says, looking round to make sure none of the comp'ny was
follering him out to the ice-boat. "I've wanted to speak to you afore,
but I haven't had the chance. You mustn't b'lieve too much of what Mr.
Catesby-Stuart says, nor you mustn't always do just what he suggests.
You see," he says, "he's a dreadful practical joker."

"Yes," says Jonadab, beginning to look sick. I didn't say nothing, but I
guess I looked the same way.

"Yes," said Ebenezer, kind of uneasy like; "Now, in that matter of Mrs.
Granby. I s'pose Phil put you up to asking her about her son's laundry.
Yes? Well, I thought so. You see, the fact is, her boy is a broker down
in Wall Street, and he's been caught making some of what they call 'wash
sales' of stock. It's against the rules of the Exchange to do that, and
the papers have been full of the row. You can see," says Dillaway, "how
the laundry question kind of stirred the old lady up. But, Lord! it must
have been funny," and he commenced to grin.

I looked at Jonadab, and he looked at me. I thought of Marm Granby, and
her being "dying to know us," and I thought of the lies about the "hod
of change" and all the rest, and I give you my word _I_ didn't grin, not
enough to show my wisdom teeth, anyhow. A crack in the ice an inch wide
would have held me, with room to spare; I know that.