A chorus of laughs greeted the suggestion.
“Instead of being a stroke of genius, I should call that a stroke of paralysis,” declared Nora.
“Such is the support that Hippy Wingate gets from his wife,” complained the lieutenant.
“Can you blame her?” teased Grace. “Anne, Elfreda, we have not heard from you.”
“While you people have been making sport of Hippy’s suggestions, I wish to say that he has made an excellent one,” asserted Elfreda.
“Oh, Elfreda!” cried Anne and Nora in one voice.
“I will give you to understand that I am no automobile girl on horseback,” asserted Emma indignantly. “I won’t ride under any such name, either. I—I’ll faint away first. There now!”
“Save the heroics, Emma. Nothing is further from my mind than to call our outfit by that name,” replied Elfreda.
“I call that downright mean,” objected Hippy, with mock indignation. “You raise my hopes to the skies, shower me with compliments, calculated to prove that I am not a paralytic, then you drop me over the edge. I leave it to Nora if that isn’t cruelty to animals.”
“It is,” agreed Nora gravely, whereat the Overton girls broke into a peal of merry laughter.