"See here, Jack," she flashed, "because you're my cousin is no reason why you can bully me. You might as well understand that I am in this, and I am going to have my part in whatever we do."
"Hear, hear," Hugh applauded servilely.
Nikka laughed.
"How about it, Vernon?" I demanded of my uncle.
He spread his hands in a gesture of depreciation.
"My dear Jack," he said, "you evidently have small acquaintance with the younger feminine generation. Betty is of legal age—I trust, my dear, you have no objection to the revelation of an intimate detail your sex are supposed to cherish in secret?—"
"Not a particle, dad," Betty responded cheerfully.
"—and within reasonable limits, her judgment is to be depended upon. Moreover, a not unimportant consideration is that she knows how to run a motor, and in our excursions in the Curlew her aid has been of some value.",
"Don't be stuffy, Jack," urged Hugh. "Give the girl a chance. There are lots of things she can do, short of mixing it with your friend Toutou. I gather that Nikka's lady friend in the hostile camp was not averse—"
"That's a different matter," I interrupted, perceiving the embarrassment on Nikka's face.