“Let’s write it. That’ll save other people, strangers, from hearing. Miss G. always carries a pad and pencil with her and I’ll do it myself, since you think I’m most to blame. But I’m afraid even my writing won’t stop her talking when she finds out! Oh! dear! I wish Alfy Babcock had never come on this boat! Then I shouldn’t have gone to watch her and seen him.”
“Huh! I don’t think it’s quite fair to blame poor Alfy for our own fault. We’d no business to be so careless, either one of us. I had a bright notion that maybe that stewardess or some official had picked up the pocket-books, so I asked every single one of them, big and little, black and white, and not a soul knew a thing about it. No, Dolly Doodles, the blame’s our own and—the man’s,” said Molly, with conviction.
Miss Greatorex was vastly relieved to see her charges returning to her side. She had become anxious over their prolonged absence and in her nervousness had imagined all sorts of accidents which might have befallen them. Yet the same nervousness had prevented her questioning any employee of the steamer, who had come near, she shrinking from the observation this would attract to her deafness.
Therefore, it was with a much brighter smile than ordinary that she welcomed the truants, and was disappointed to have her greeting so dejectedly returned.
“I began to worry over you, my dears, I cannot call either of you really mischievous, yet I hope you won’t leave me in suspense so long again. Anywhere, so that you are in my sight all of the time, you are free to move about. But—Why, my dears! What has happened to make you so sober?”
It certainly was vexing, when the lady was making such extra effort to be agreeable and to adapt herself to young people’s ideas, to have these efforts so disregarded; and it was a strange thing that Dorothy should without permission take the notebook and pencil from her teacher’s lap and begin to write.
Miss Isobel had set forth upon her travels with the firm intention of making notes about everything along the way and it disturbed her methodical soul to have anybody else “messing” with this neat little record. It was only a trifle better that the girl should have turned to the very back of the book and chosen a fly leaf there to scribble on. Scribbling it seemed, so rapidly was it done, and after a brief time the book was returned to its owner and she silently requested to examine what had been written in it. This is what she read:
“We’ve lost our pocket-books. Or, maybe, I lost them both. We’ve lost the man, too. He was a little, shiny old man, with a fringe of white hair around his head. When he put his hat on he had two foreheads under its rim, one before and one behind. His coat was shiny. His hat was shiny and had a hole in it. He—he seemed to shine all over, especially in his smile. That was perfectly lovely. Have you seen him? Because if you know where he is I’d like to ask him for our purses. That is if he has them as Molly and, maybe, I think. Else how could we buy his paper for him without any money and how can we give him the paper if he—isn’t?”
Poor Dorothy fancied that she had made everything most explicit yet, at the same time, very gently broken the news of the lost purses. She was unprepared for the expression of confusion that settled upon Miss Greatorex’s austere features as she read this communication once, then more carefully a second time.
Leaning forward, eagerly observant of “how she’ll take it” Molly perceived that Dorothy’s explanation hadn’t been sufficient; or else that it had not dawned upon Miss Isobel’s comprehension that her girls had really been so careless, that the loss was genuine. As the lady looked up, after this second reading, with a question but no anger in her expression, the observer exclaimed: