All this, and more, Jack was thinking as he watched the trio descend. He and Phil were occupying a strategic position, from which they could see but not be seen; in fact, they had left the front door slightly ajar with that very end in view.
“It seems very strange,” Lucile was saying as they reached the foot of the stairs, “that we haven’t heard any breakfast bell. If it’s as late as the boys say it is, everybody ought to be up.”
Then she flung open the door and came upon the boys, seated on the railing of the veranda, apparently engrossed in conversation. The girls gasped with amazement at sight of the boys, and the boys gasped with very genuine admiration at sight of the girls.
“Wh-what——” began Lucile, bewildered. “I thought you and Phil were going for a walk.” 171
“So we are,” said Jack, easily. “We were only waiting for you.”
“Phil,” Lucile turned accusingly to her brother, “this is some trick you are trying to play on us. Why isn’t there any breakfast and why aren’t there any people. Come on, ’fess up!”
Jessie threw up her hands wearily. “We ought to know enough to suspect him by this time,” she sighed. “But I guess we’ll never get over being taken in.”
“By the position of the sun,” quoth Evelyn, “it ought to be about six thirty.”
“Just about,” Lucile corroborated. “No wonder we were sleepy.”
All this time the boys had been regarding the victims of their deception with an assumption of innocence, made ineffective by the suppressed laughter in their eyes.