“Can’t you see?” cried Farnsworth. “Where are your wits? Why should I give that thing to Farrington, today?”
They all looked blank, till suddenly it dawned on Patty.
“Oh, Little Billee!” she cried, “oh, you clever, clever thing! Oh, girls, don’t you see? It’s a Ki-Mona!”
Then they did see, and they cheered and complimented Farnsworth on his witty gift.
“It’s so clever and so beautiful, I think I shall take it myself,” Mona declared, and Roger tossed it over to her. “With all my worldly goods—may as well begin at once,” he said with a mock air of resignation.
The shower over, they went to the ballroom to dance. Of course “Sir Roger de Coverly” was first on the programme, and after that the more modern dances.
Patty tried to evade Chick Channing, for he was growing a bit insistent in his attentions.
“Take me for a veranda stroll, Kit,” she said, as she saw Channing approaching. “I want you to tell me all about that fortune business. But first, how did you ever come to think of it?”
“Oh, you know my fatal facility for practical jokes. Come, sit in this palmy bower, and I’ll tell you all I know, and then some.”
They sauntered in to the pretty glass-enclosed nook, and sat down among the palms. “You see,” Kit went on, “I haven’t played a joke in I dunno when, and I just had to get one off. So when I was prowling around, and struck that empty shack, the idea sprang full-fledged to my o’er clever brain. I fixed it up with Bobbink,—and the rest is history. Bobsy is a great boy, though a little fresh. He got the make-up for my face, and the rugs and things. He fixed them all in the old shanty, and then he carried out the toothache farce in accordance with my orders.”