Mollie disappeared into the kitchen and returned a moment later, bringing back with her an old stick that looked as though it might have been a clothespole in its better days.
"Will this do?" she asked, holding it out to Roy. "It was the only thing I could find."
"Just what I wanted," Roy answered. "Now, fellows, let's see what we can do with the thing."
The four boys crowded around, peering up into the opening as if they hoped to find the solution of the mystery there, while the girls watched them with breathless interest.
It was then that it happened. Roy poked upward inquiringly with his stick, and for answer a cloud of soot and ashes discharged itself from the chimney, showering the boys' faces with grimy dust.
They drew back with cries of disgust and began rubbing their eyes and faces furiously. Then the four blackened adventurers turned to the girls appealingly. They looked so funny, standing there with their faces black and their clothes bespattered with grime and a look of sheepish chagrin on their faces, that the girls burst into gales of uncontrolled laughter.
"You look just like candidates for a minstrel show," gasped Mollie, while the boys stood regarding her reproachfully. "Oh, boys, if you only had a mirror! If you only had!"