“He’ll get it back in time. You see if he doesn’t! Oh, Nan, Hooray with me!”
“I won’t. You’ve made noise enough to frighten the whole block now! Do quiet down, Patty, and get dressed.”
“All right, I will,” said Patty, in a whisper, and Nan went away, laughing.
Patty went down to breakfast in a very happy frame of mind, and announced to her father that the motor car was as good as won.
“Why do you feel so sure of Mr. Hepworth’s puzzle?” asked her father, a little curiously. “He never solved a charade before.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Patty, with supreme confidence. “He said he’d do it. If he hadn’t known he could do it, he wouldn’t have said he would do it.”
“Oh, stop, Patty!” cried Nan. “You talk like a puzzle, yourself. Don’t get the habit, I beg.”
“I won’t. But now I must go and copy my answers neatly, and by that time Mr. Hepworth’s will be here, and I’ll send ’em off about noon.”
Patty spent a happy morning copying her answers in her neat script, and looking with pride at her complete list.
At last it was all done, and she had left a vacant space to insert the answer to the charade when Mr. Hepworth should send it. But at noon it had not arrived, and she had had no word from him.