"Hello, hello! Whipple New Place—Merle Whipple speaking." He listened, standing in the doorway to turn a puzzled face to the group about the table. "Hello! Who—who?" His bewilderment was apparent. "But it's Pat talking," he said, "over long distance."
"Calling from her room upstairs to fool you," warned Sharon. "Don't I know her flummididdles?"
But the look of bewilderment on Merle's face had become a look of pure fright. He raised a hand sternly to Sharon.
"Once more," he called, hoarsely, and again listened with widening eyes. He lifted his face to the group, the receiver still at his ear. "She says—good heaven! She says, 'I've gone A.W.O.L., and now I'm safe and married—I'm married to Wilbur Cowan.'" He uttered his brother's name in the tone of a shocked true Whipple.
"Good heaven!" echoed Harvey D.
"I'm blest!" said Gideon.
"I snum to goodness!" said the dazed Sharon. "The darned skeesicks!"
Merle still listened. Again he raised a now potent hand.
"She says she doesn't know how she came to do it, except that he put a comether on her."
He hung up the receiver and fell into a chair before the table that held the telephone.