Josie solemnly shook hands with the young man.
“Remember to call me Miss Friend though, or Josie. I would not mention the name of O’Gorman. Crooks are always shy of it and while Cheatham hasn’t been found out yet, I’ll bet he knows who might have caught him if he had broken the eleventh commandment.”
“Well, if I am supposed to have known you well enough at Cornell to pick you up and bring you home to dinner, I reckon I know you well enough to call you plain Josie.”
“Won’t your mother think I’m mighty forward to accept an invitation from you to a family gathering on Christmas day?”
“Oh, I’ll fix Mother. Don’t worry about her. And now, Josie, what am I to say you were doing in Peewee Valley on this cold day?”
“Why not let rag rugs and brooms be the motive? It went down with you all right and why not with them?”
“Yes it did!” he exclaimed scornfully. “I knew all the time you weren’t after rag rugs.”
“Then you knew a lot, because I really am going over to this cabin and order a big lot for our shop. You have forgotten the shop. My detective business is supposed to be a side issue and the shop is the all important thing, since it is by running the shop that a number of persons make a living. Being a detective is my art but helping to run the Higgledy Piggledy Shop is my business.”
“All right then, rag rugs and home-made brooms it shall be! I found you standing on your head in a snow drift on your way to Uncle Abe’s cabin and when I set you right side up you turned out to be the Josie Friend I had known at Cornell, where you were specializing in—in—”
“Psychology and domestic science!” said Josie, with a grin.