“But I don’t think I understand, Doctor,” said Mrs. Vaughan; “I thought you only arrived from Pautipaug Beach to-day.”
“I did, I did,” answered the Doctor, happily. “I came from down the shore in the Natica at five-thirty, to be exact, from the hotel at Pautipaug, but I stopped off at my secret hiding-place. You didn’t know I had one, did you, Mrs. Vaughan? Don’t tell the Commodore, for he still believes in me. Nobody knows about it except these young ladies and Captain Carey.”
“Does the Captain know?” exclaimed Polly.
“Yes. It was through him I rented Smugglers’ Island for the summer. I can make the trip back and forth in the Natica and study in peace there. I tried to keep under cover but Miss Polly, here, ferreted me out, and has kept me alive since on orange marmalade.”
“If we had suspected for one minute that you were famous, we wouldn’t have given you a bit,” said Polly severely. “I think you owe the whole club an apology.”
“I am asking it now,” the Doctor returned. “Mrs. Vaughan, you see how they order me around? If I had been a pirate or a smuggler, they would have respected me.”
“Oh, I think they will forgive you, Doctor,” said Mrs. Vaughan, as she smiled around at the happy, girlish faces surrounding the Doctor. “In fact, we shall all have to, for it is a joke on little Eagle Bay. I was reading only last week, in a New York paper, that the eminent naturalist, Dr. Penrhyn Smith, had vanished as usual, and it was thought he had slipped south on a trip through the Amazonian wilderness. And all the while you were right here on Smugglers’ Island.”
“But quite near the Amazonian wilderness just the same,” the Doctor added, teasingly. “They are all girl warriors over on the Knob, Mrs. Vaughan. You don’t know them as I do.”
“Why did you go there to live?” asked Crullers, in her point-blank way.
“It’s a state secret,” replied the Doctor, gravely. “I am on the trail of a certain polypus, and if I told you all about it, you’d hunt after it yourself, and you might possibly find it, and take all the credit away from me.”