Quick as a flash Dorothy, looking very determined, stood with her back against the door. "Guard the other door, girls, and some one help me here!" she cried. "Now, Joe Bancroft, who helped you get up this trick?"
Joe, to whom laughter and eating were the main objects of life, threw back his head and laughed until he choked, and grew so red in the face that the girls were actually frightened.
"Oh, oh," he gasped at last, "that's done me lots of good. I think
I could eat a little more supper now."
He looked so funny standing there in the neat, black skirt topped by the respectable bonnet and shawl, the spectacles and white hair, that the girls went off into shrieks of merriment. Even Dorothy, who was really angry, couldn't wholly resist the fun of the situation, but she was sober again in a moment and said sternly, "You haven't told us yet who are the others. You never got this up all by yourself, I know."
"Honor forbids me to mention the names of my partners in crime," answered Joe with great solemnity. "They will all be glad to know that you were so kind to a poor old woman—who may have had daughters of her own," he added with a naughty twinkle in his eye.
"Oh, this is too much. Do let him go, Dolly," begged Charlotte.
"We know well enough that Frank and Bert are in it, and probably
Phil Canfield and Jack."
"No, not Phil and Jack," said Joe quickly, and then groaned inwardly over his stupidity.
"Thanks. That's all we wanted to know," answered Charlotte with triumph in her voice.
"That's one for you, Charlotte. You had me there ail right. Now, ladies, with your kind permission I'll go, leaving you in part payment for my gorgeous supper my stock in trade."
He drew from his bag and laid solemnly on the table one paper of pins, one of needles, and a cake of soap. Then, seeing that the girls at the other door had relaxed their watchfulness, he slipped past them, through the kitchen and out the back door.