"Wait a minute."
Julian lifted the sharp-snouted visor without any trouble. Foster's eyes and nose looked out, and a scrap of paper fluttered to the floor.
"Was that what was bothering my nose?"
But Julian didn't answer him. He had stooped to retrieve the piece of paper and was studying it.
"Now what the—" he muttered, perplexed. Then all at once he jumped straight up in the air as though he had stepped on a bee barefoot. "Oh, man! Oh man, oh brother! PORSH!"
And he went thundering up the stairs in a one-boy stampede to the attic.
"Hey, wait!" cried Foster in his robot voice: the steel visor had dropped down again. "Let me out of this thing!"
But Julian was gone. Foster sighed an echoing sigh within the helmet. He could see pretty well through the eye slits, but he felt top-heavy, as though he were wearing an iron bucket on his head, and he couldn't get it off by himself. Sighing again, he felt for the banister and started cautiously up the stairs to find his cousin.
"Portia!" roared Julian.
"Now what?" she said, marking her place on the page with her finger.