Stay and cheer me up, there's a good feller.

I'd just about reached the stage where I had the girl and boy stove to flinders under that pesky auto.

I'd even begun to figger on notifyin' the undertaker.
Tell me I'm an old fool and then talk about somethin' else.

They'll be here any minute." But a good many minutes passed, and still they did not come.

Pearson, aware of his companion's growing anxiety, chatted of the novel, of the people at the boarding house, of anything and everything he could think of likely to divert attention from the one important topic.