"Oh, no!" laughed Frank. "I beg your pardon for leaving you in such a manner, but you know you had become so very unsociable that I had to do——"
Pierson made a weak gesture, and interrupted with:
"Don't apologize for that—it was the agreement that one should run away from the other, if possible, on the way back. You had a right to do it."
"What is all this about?" asked Rattleton, in a mystified manner. "What have you fellows been doing?"
"Don't you know?" cried Paul, amazed.
"No, I don't know," declared Rattleton. "Frank walked into the room a short time ago, went into his bedroom, took a sponge bath and changed his clothes, and we have been telling stories since then."
"Took a sponge bath?" shouted Pierson, popping
bolt upright. "Jerusalem. You talk as if he had been here half an hour! I will admit that this beats anything I ever experienced!"
Then he flopped down on the couch again, as if utterly overcome.