“You see,” she began, “it’s a sort of advertisement for a big motor-car company.”
“Don’t try to float a motor-car company, Patty,” advised her father; “it’s too big a project for a young girl.”
“I’m not going to do that, Daddy Fairfield; but I begin to think that what I am going to do is almost as hard. You see, this big company has issued a book of a hundred puzzles. Now, whoever guesses all those puzzles correctly will get the prize. And,—the prize is a lovely electric runabout. And I want it!”
“Hevings! hevings!” murmured Mr. Van Reypen. “She wants an Electric Runabout! Why, Infant, you’ll break your blessed neck!”
“Indeed, I won’t! I guess I’ve brains enough to run an electric car! If I guess those puzzles, that’ll prove it. They’re fearfully hard! Listen to this one. ‘When did London begin with an L and end with an E?’”
“That is hard,” said Nan. “It must be some foreign name for London. But Londres won’t do.”
“No,” said Patty, “I thought of that. I expect it’s some old Anglo-Saxon or Hardicanute name.”
“I expect it’s rubbish,” said her father. “Patty, don’t begin on these things. You’ll wear yourself out. I know how you hammer at anything, once you begin it, and you’ll be sitting up nights with these foolish questions until you’re really ill.”
“Oh, no, I won’t, father. And beside, Mr. Van Reypen is going to help me, lots.”
“Angel Child,” said Philip, looking at her with a patronising air, “if all your questions are as easy as that one you just quoted, your task is already accomplished.”