“No,” she returned, in all seriousness, “but he believes he was commissioned to hunt out a valuable paper, of some sort, and while on the quest he fell through the earth, by accident. It was the shock of that that impaired his memory.”
“Sufficient cause!” I couldn’t help saying.
Olive bristled: “Oh, I know you don’t believe his story,—almost nobody does,—but I do.”
“So do I!” and Zizi was in the room. One could never say of that girl that she entered or came in,—she just—was there,—in that silent, mysterious way of hers. And then with equally invisible motions she was sitting opposite me, at Olive’s side, on a low ottoman.
“I know Mr. Rivers very well,” Zizi announced, as if she were his official sponsor, “and what he says is true, no matter how unbelievable it may sound. He says he fell through the earth, and so he did fall through the earth, and that’s all there is about that!”
“Good for you, Zizi!” I cried. “You’re a loyal little champion! And just how did he accomplish the feat?”
“It will be explained in due season,” and Zizi’s big black eyes took on a sibylline expression as she gazed straight at me. “If you were told, on good authority, that a man had crossed the ocean in an aeroplane, you’d believe it, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes; but that doesn’t seem to me a parallel case,” I demurred.
“Neither is Case Rivers a parallel case,” Zizi giggled, “but he’s the real thing in the way of Earth Fallers. And when you know all, you’ll know everything!”
The child was exasperating in her foolish retorts and yet so convincing was the determined shake of her little black head that I was almost tempted to believe in her statements.