"I will, too, run away!"
The girl flung it over her shoulder as she swaggered into the hall. The Wilbur twin trod incessantly on her heels.
"Wants his pants!" murmured Sharon Whipple. "Prunes and apricots! Wants his pants!"
"Mistake ever to part with 'em," observed Gideon. "Of course she browbeat him."
"My young friend here tells me she bribed him," explained Juliana.
"She gave him a lot of money and I'm keeping it for him," said her self-possessed young friend, and he indicated bulging pockets.
"Looted her bank," said Juliana.
"Forehanded little tike," said Sharon, admiringly. "And smart! She can outsmart us all any day in the week!"
In a dim upper bedroom in the big house Wilbur Cowan divested himself of woman's raiment for probably the last time in his life. He hurried more than he might have, because the room was full of large, strange, terrifying furniture. It was a place to get out of as soon as he could. Two buttons at the back of the dress he was unable to reach, but this trifling circumstance did not for more than a scant second delay his release. Then his own clothes were thrust in to him by the stepmother, who embarrassingly lingered to help him button his own waist with the faded horseshoes to the happily restored pants.