"H—h—iii," rallied Rollins.
"That red roof on the rocks—" shouted Paul Brenswick.
"Was it there—yesterday?" demanded George Keets.
"Wait!" cackled Rollins. "Wait till I go look!" A felt footstep thudded. A window opened. The felt footstep thudded again. "No," called Rollins. "Now that I come to think of it— I don't remember having noticed a red roof there yesterday."
"Now!" laughed George Keets.
"But, oh, I say!" gasped Rollins, in what seemed to be very sudden and altogether indisputable confusion. "Why—why it must have been there! Because that's the shack where we've catalogued the shells every year—for the last seven years!"
"Now!" laughed Paul Brenswick.
Without another word everybody made a bolt for the hat-rack and the big oak settle, snatched up his or her oil-skin clothes—anybody's oil-skin clothes—and dashed off through the rain to the edge of the cliff to investigate the phenomenon at closer range.
Truly the thing was almost too easy to be really righteous! Just a huge rock-colored tarpaulin stripped at will from a red-tiled roof and behold, mystery looms on an otherwise drab-colored day! And a mystery at a houseparty? Well— whoever may stand proven as the mother of invention— Curiosity, you know just as well as I do, is the father of a great many very sprightly little adventures!
Within ten minutes from the proscenium box of our big bay- window, my Husband and I could easily discern the absurd little plot and counterplots that were already being hatched.