“I don’t doubt that, sir,” said Jim dutifully.
“Keep your eyes open this afternoon,” Mr. Morton advised him mysteriously. “There are features in this house that the head of your firm wouldn’t be capable of inventing. Architects are like sheep—they follow the last fashions. Now when I’ve been abroad, I’ve studied buildings over there. When I see a good thing in some old house in a little moss-grown town like Harding, I remember it. I also study character. Just as Morton Hall is adapted to Miss B. A. and her protégées, so this place is adapted to John and this little tomboy. I exercise prevision when I build. Why, I foresaw this very game of hide-and-seek, so to speak. Just give a little study to the habits and tastes of your clients, my boy, and you’ll make a name for yourself. That’s the way to build; study character and exercise foresight.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Jim respectfully.
“Eny, meeny, miny, mo,” began Babe hastily, having had quite enough of architectural theories. The lot of being “it” first fell upon her, and John’s den was chosen as goal.
“Remember,” Babe told them, “you can go anywhere except to the kitchen. I shouldn’t dare to chase you there. Open any door that you see——”
“Particularly any door you don’t quite see,” put in Jasper J. Morton mysteriously.
“It’s too early for skeletons,” laughed John, “so you needn’t be afraid of the closets.”
“I shall count my hundred awfully fast,” announced Babe, suiting the action to the words with a promptness that sent her guests scuttling for hiding-places.
The first person to be caught was Helen Adams, who confessed that she hadn’t dared to go into any rooms but the down-stairs ones that were obviously meant for guests; and nobody had gone far or had happened upon any very difficult hiding-places. But the next time, led by Babe, the party ranged far afield, and it took so long to find them all that a ten-minute limit was arranged; after ten minutes’ hunting those who were not found could “come in free.” Nobody was surprised that Dick and Eleanor should forget this privilege at the end of a round, but when Betty had twice failed to appear Babe declared that she must have found one of Father Morton’s real hiding-places, and the whole party started off in search of her. Up-stairs and down again they went, opening closets, hunting in chests, under beds, behind portières. Babe declared that she was at last learning the way around her domain, and discovering any number of extra cupboards and closets; but neither she nor anybody else discovered Betty.
At four the butler caught his flyaway little mistress long enough to announce to her that tea was served in the yellow drawing-room.