"What, Smithfield, and Lily, and even Brindlebury?"
She nodded in as much space as she had.
"Where are they?" he asked.
"They're playing Coon-Can in the garret. And oh," she added with a sudden spasm of recollection, "they'll be so hungry! They haven't had anything to eat for ages. I promised to bring them something as soon as the house was quiet, only you put everything out of my head."
"We'll give them a party in the dining-room—our first," said Crane. "I'll write the invitation, and we'll send Lefferts to the garret with it."
"Don't you think I'd better go up and explain?" said Claudia.
"The invitation will explain," answered Burton. It read: "Mr. Burton Crane and Miss Claudia Revelly request the pleasure of the Revellys' company at supper immediately."
They roused Lefferts, who had by this time fallen into a comfortable sleep. "Just run up and give this note to the people you'll find in the garret, there's a good fellow," said Crane.
Lefferts sat up, rubbing his eyes. "The people I'll find in the garret," he murmured. "But how about the little black men in the chimney, and the ghosts who live in the wall? This is the strangest house, Crane, the very strangest house I ever knew." But he took the note and wandered slowly upstairs with it, shaking his head.
On the landing of the second story, his eye caught the whisk of a skirt, and pursuing it instantly, he came upon Lily. He cornered her in the angle of the stairs.