“How do you know?” said Eve, a bit abruptly.
“Your mama told my mama and my mama told me,” returned Zizi, who could put such graphic impudence into the silly phrase, that it was impossible not to be amused at it. “Oh, do you do that, too?” she added, as Eve bit her lip in annoyance. “So do I! It’s such a hard habit to break, ain’t it? But you oughtn’t to, it scars your lips. Now, Penny Wise, if you’ll go for a walk and a talk with your little otherwise, she’ll tell you sumpum that you ought to know.”
“Look out, Ziz,” Wise said to her, as they walked off by themselves, and followed the path by the lake, “you mustn’t be too saucy to Miss Carnforth, or there’ll be trouble.”
“Have to, honey. I’ve got to get her real mad at me, to find out her secret. She’s no criminal, as I’ve told you, but she knows who is.”
“Do you?”
“Not yet, but soon. Now, listen, while I expound a few. Friend Spook did appear to me last night.”
“Really?”
“Sure as shootin’! I thought it over, and decided I’d better not admit it to the gaping crowd, or we’ll never find out who does the stunt.”
“But, really, Zizi?”
“Yes, really, Pen. It was about two o’clock,—not four. A tall shape, draped in white, breezed in and toddled around trying to attract my attention. I lay there and looked sort of glassy-eyed, as if I was awake, but kinda hypnotized, you know. Well, I kept up that attitude, and the thing came nearer and leaned over me, and sure enough it had a skull for a face; but, land, Penny, it was a papier maché skull,—a mask, you know. ’Twould be fine in the movies, I must put Manager Reeves up to that dodge!”