“Hush!” echoed his sister Nan.
They were two of the twins.
Again came the shuffling noise made by tiptoeing feet on the front stairs.
“Quiet now, Flossie and Freddie!” whispered Bert. “Go easy, and don’t make a racket!”
He turned toward Nan, who was carrying something in a paper that rattled because of its stiffness.
“Can’t you be quieter?” asked Bert.
“It isn’t me—it’s this paper,” Nan answered. “I should have taken some of the tissue kind.”
“I wish you had,” Bert went on. “But it’s too late now. We’re almost there. As soon as we get everything hidden it will be all right.”
Suddenly there was a sound behind Bert and Nan as though someone were choking. It was followed by a smothered laugh.
“What’s that?” asked Bert in a sharp whisper. “Do you want to have everybody in the house down here seeing what we’re doing? Who did that?”