lost and found
Amy's face was flushed, her hat slightly askew, and she felt even more uncomfortable than she looked. It was all on account of her lost keys. For ten minutes or more she had been bending over boxes, and poking among all kinds of things in the shed near the wharf, in the vain hope that she might find what she had lost. When she had discovered that the keys were missing, Priscilla volunteered to help her find them.
As the discovery had been made at the very moment when the carriage was at the door to take them for an afternoon drive, Amy insisted that the others should go without her, since it was evidently her duty to search for the missing.
"Let me go with you," Priscilla had urged. "When we find the keys we can go sightseeing by ourselves. It will be just as good fun as driving." Thus Amy and Priscilla made their way by themselves to the wharf, while Mrs. Redmond and Martine were driven in the direction of Milton.
"It wouldn't be so bad if it were only my trunk key," Amy had lamented, "but there's a key of my mother's on the chain, and several keys of little boxes—one or two of which I have with me; the others are at home. I am always losing keys."
"You probably lost them after your trunk had been examined this morning. What a fuss about nothing it was! Why, the inspector didn't even lift the tray from my trunk. But we had all the trouble of unlocking and opening our trunks, and in that way I suppose the keys were lost."
Priscilla spoke with more energy than was usual with her. When they reached the wharf, the dignified Custom-House official and the small boys congregated there and in the neighborhood of the train knew nothing about the keys. The inspector remembered seeing them.
"I noticed your party particularly, and you were swinging your keys by a long silver chain. Well, they may have slipped through a crack somewhere, and so the best thing for you is to get a locksmith to fit a key before you go any farther."
Overhearing this advice, one or two of the boys lounging about offered to guide the young ladies to a locksmith. Thus Amy and Priscilla, not in the best of spirits, with hats askew and shirt-waists somewhat rumpled, came face to face with Fritz Tomkins.