“Well, and hadn’t we oughter?” demanded Chalks. “Is there any gentleman here who doesn’t like it?”
“Oh, no, I only mentioned the circumstance as a source of unction,” said the speaker.
“Chalks is right. We must get her out of the hotel,” Campbell agreed. “She mustn’t be exposed any longer to contact with those little beasts of Mimis.”
“That’s all very well, but how are we to manage it?” inquired Norton. “We can’t give her the word to move, without saying why. And as I understand it, that’s precisely the last thing we wish to do.”
“We want to get her out of the mud, without letting her know she’s in it,” said another.
“Yes, that’s the devil of it,” admitted Chalks. “But I’ll tell you what,” he added, with an air of inspiration. “Why not work it from the other end round? Get rid of the Mimis, and let Miss stop?”
This proposition was so radical, so revolutionary, we were inclined to greet it with derision. But Chalks stood by his guns. “How to do it?” he cried. “Why, boycott ‘em. Make this shop too hot to hold ‘em. Cultivate the art of being infernally disagreeable. They’ll clear out fast enough. Then there’d be no harm in Miss staying till the end of time.”
“What’ll Madame say?”
“Oh, we can fill their places up with fellows. I’ll go touting among the men at the school. Easy enough to bag a half a dozen.”
“But what about Lucile?”—Lucile, it will be remembered, was Madame’s niece.