"Oh, fire away, slow-coach!"

"Well, girls," began Laura gamely, breathing a little hard.—"But, mind, you must never utter a word of what I'm going to tell you. It's a dead secret, and IF you let on——"

"S' help me God!"

"Ananias and Sapphira!"

"Oh, DO hurry up."

"Well ... well, he's just the most—oh, I don't know how to say it, girls—the MOST——"

"Just scrumptious, I suppose, eh?"

"Just positively scrumptious, and ..."

"And what'd he do?"

"And what about his old sketch of a wife?"