Eveley and Eileen had listened in fascinated silence during this recital of his sister’s wrongdoing. But Betty stuck a fat thumb between rosy lips, and drooped her eyes demurely behind her curling lashes.
“Did—you do all that, Betty?” demanded Eileen at last, very faintly.
“I did more than that,” she said proudly. “I put the pink lady’s bedroom slippers in a man’s traveling bag, and they haven’t found it out yet. And I slipped Billy’s wriggly lizard down the black lady’s neck, and she said a naughty word. And—”
“And what did Billy do?”
Betty’s lips curled with scorn. “Billy? He didn’t do anything. He’s too good. He don’t ever do anything.”
Billy advanced with the threatening hunch of his shoulders and clench of the brown fists.
“You say, ‘Excuse me for them words,’” he said in a low voice. “And say it quick.”
Betty jerked her finger from her mouth and mumbled rapidly in a voice of frightened nervousness, “Excuse me for them words, please excuse me for them words.” And then, as her brother’s shoulders relaxed, she sidled up to him, rubbing herself affectionately against his arm, and whispered, “Aw, Billy, I was only joking. You ain’t mad at me, are you?”
“Let’s go,” said Eileen. “I feel—faint.”
“Sticking pins is good for faintness,” said Betty hopefully. “I did it to Aunt Agnes twice when she nearly fainted, and she came to right away.”