room.
"But there's one of my neighbors hardly ever gets to the stores or to a
movie show, and I'd love to ask her in; and there's another one is just
getting up from a sickness."

So the room was quite filled with guests when the Club members arrived.

"That's the boy that hung my gate for me last year the day after
Hallowe'en," whispered one old woman as Roger made his way through the
room, and several of them said, "Those are the young folks that went
round after the regular Hallowe'en party this year and put back the
signs and things the other people had pulled down."

The audience was so much larger than the Club had expected that Helen,
as president, felt called upon to make a short explanation.

"We're very glad to see you here," she said, "but we don't want you to
expect anything elaborate from us. We've just come to entertain our
friends for a short time in a simple way. So please be kind to us."

Helen was wearing a pale pink dress that was extremely becoming, and her
cheeks were flushed when she realized that these people had seen or
heard of their more pretentious undertakings and might be expecting
something similar from them now.

There was a reassuring nodding all over the room, and then the young
people began their performance. Edward Watkins first played on the
violin, giving some familiar airs with such spirit that toes went
tapping as he drew his bow back and forth.

Dorothy followed him with Kipling's "I Keep Six Honest Serving Men." The
music was Edward German's, and Helen played the accompaniment on Mrs.
Atwood's little organ. The introduction was spirited and then Dorothy
sang softly.

Dicky's turn came next on the program. He was introduced as the Honorary
Member of the United Service Club, and the name of the poem that he was
to recite was given as "Russian and Turk."

"We don't know who wrote these verses," Helen explained.

Dicky was helped to the top of a box which served as a stage and bobbed
his bobbed hair at the audience by way of a bow. Every S he pronounced
TH, which added to the pleasure of the hearers of the following lines:

There was a Russian came over the sea,
Just when the war was growing hot;
And his name it was Tjalikavakaree--
Karindobrolikanahudarot--
Shibkadirova--
Ivarditztova
Sanilik
Danevik
Varagobhot.

Dicky rattled off these names and two other similar stanzas with
astonishing glibness to the amazeme