"You'll be a millynaire," prophesied Bobby in awed tones.
"Guess we'll be on Easy Street now," shouted Cory.
"We won't be nuthin' of the kind," snapped Amarilly. "It's agoin' to all be banked fer Bud."
"I guess," said Bud, in his quiet, little old-man way, "I'm the one to hev the say. I'm agoin' to give ma two dollars a week and bank the rest."
Meanwhile John was having an uncomfortable time as he walked home with Colette. He had started on the trail of the surplice the day before. The "tenner" and the young ladies who had given the tableaux had been interviewed, but in neither case had the mysterious pocket been discovered. To-day he had visited the Beehive, but no one in the store had paid any attention to the pocket, or knew of its existence. Colette remained obdurate to his pleadings. She assumed that he was entirely to blame for the loss, and seemed to take a gleeful delight in showing him how perverse and wilful she could be. To-night he found himself less able than usual to cope with her caprices, so he began to talk of impersonal matters and dwelt upon the beauties of Bud's voice, and the astonishing way in which it had developed.
She admitted that Bud's voice was indeed wonderful, but maintained that Mrs. Jenkins's poppy hat and white gloves had been far surpassing in the way of surprises.
"Did you ever, John, see anything more shoutingly funny?"
"It wasn't funny, Colette," he said wistfully, and he proceeded to relate the history of the hat as he had heard it from the bishop that day.
[Illustration: To-night he found himself less able than usual to cope with her caprices]
And though in the depths of her heart Colette was touched by the pathos of the purchase, she must needs tread again the feminine labyrinth instead of following the more natural and open path.