"Well, that's about all," he ended, suddenly remembering what, in the excitement of the little adventure, he had momentarily forgotten,—his superior pose toward all girls and toward his sister in particular. Then he vanished swiftly out of the room, lest they be moved to ask him any further questions and lest he be tempted to answer.
After he had gone, Sue and Carol stared at each other in a maze of excited conjecture.
"What do you make of it?" sighed Carol.
"I don't make anything of it," declared Sue. "It sounds too mysterious for words. But I know this much. They weren't hunting for buried treasure. It's for papers of some kind. I'm sure of it. But what can they be about, and why should they be in the cellar?"
But Carol was off on another tack.
"At last we'll have something worth while to write about in our journals," she remarked. "Don't you ever think again, Susette Birdsey, that nothing exciting happens in our lives! I can fill up three or four pages about it."
Her companion assented absently.
"Do you realize," she suddenly exclaimed, "that here's where we got way ahead of the Imp? Serves her right for playing us such a mean trick and going out of the room. I call it a piece of downright luck!"