"You gotter have brains all right," said Dunstan; "and then you've gotter forget you got 'em or that anybody else has 'em. Look at the after-dinner speeches, you know that rot, and the political ones, all done by famous men; don't they prove that brains are only a side-show? You just have 'em, but when you get there you don't use 'em. That's the idea."
The bobbed head leaning seriously by the side of the cropped one to swab the runners considered seriously these things.
Finally Minga announced, "Say, while I'm speaking of deep things and all, I'm going home next week. After we snitch Terry from jail I'm done!"
Dunstan looked at her sagely. He stood up, stretched, and eyed his friend with increasing disapproval. "Pshaw, that's a new kind of slush; what have you got, indigestion? Go home, nothing. Why, after the Terry rescue——"
Minga rubbed solemnly on the running-board; her friend looked alarmed.
"You have not got to go home! What do the Mede and Persian care as long as you're where they can send you day-letters and telephones. No, ma'am, you've got to stay here in this house of the seven sleepers and nobody-to-wash-cars, you've got to stay here and sass the governor and shock Aunt Reely and keep Sard from eloping with the iceman and once in a while, for deviltry, hold my hand. That's what you've got to do."
The boyish faun-like face smiled belligerently, but Dunstan's eyes had subtle anxiety. "You haven't really to go?" he inquired. "Aw come on, can't you start a new sweater and say you can't go home till you've finished it? I've seen many a girl work that dodge," remarked Dunstan. "On account of this being the only place you can match the wool," he nodded acutely.
Minga stood pulling down her belt. She gave the bobbed head a resolute shake. "I'm going," she said. She stood there, a curious little picture of untried resolution. "I don't know exactly what's come over me," the girl confessed. "I've nothing against you, Dunce; you've been a real sweet idiot, and I'm going to see us through the Terry rescue, but after the Terry rescue," said Minga in a solemn tone, "home I've got to go." She hesitated a moment adding, "Anyway, after that, you see, Judgie will hate me and turn me out and Aunt Reely will be nervous and Sard will be queer and gloomy and you——"
"Anyway I'll be annoying," said Dunstan obstinately, "the way I've been right along."
There was a long silence for this talkative pair. At last: