“We have on the robes of state to-night,” said Sylvia, with a half hearted return to her once loved game, “for our royal father, the king, is coming to pay us a visit with all his court.”
Nyoda made her a sweeping curtsey and hurried upstairs to dress herself. The costumes of all the rest were kept a secret from one another, and no one was to unmask until the stroke of eleven. She heard stifled giggles and exclamations coming through the doors of all the rooms as she proceeded down the hall.
Crash! went something in one of the rooms and Nyoda paused to investigate. There stood Slim before a mirror, hopelessly entangled in a sheet which he was trying to drape around himself. A wild sweep of his hand had smashed the electric light bulb at the side of the mirror, and sent the globe flying across the room to shatter itself on the floor.
“Wait a minute, I’ll help you,” said Nyoda, coming forward laughing.
Slim emerged from the sheet very red in the face, deeply abashed at the damage he had done.
“I was only trying to grab ahold of the other end,” he explained ruefully, “like this—” He flung out the other hand in a gesture of illustration, and smash went the globe on the other side of the mirror.
Nyoda laughed at his horror-stricken countenance, and soothed his embarrassment while she pinned him into the sheet and pulled over his head the pillow case which was to act as mask.
“Just as if you could disguise Slim by masking him!” she thought mirthfully as she worked. “The more you try to cover him up the worse you give him away. It’s like trying to disguise an elephant.”
She got him finished, and as a precaution against further accidents bade him sit still in the chair where she placed him until the dinner gong sounded downstairs; then she hastened on toward her own room.
“Oh, I forgot about Hercules!” she suddenly exclaimed aloud. “I promised to get something for him.”