“Certainly. Help yourself, although that’s a perfectly brand new trunk and it almost got lost in the shuffle. Wait, I’ll fix the cover nice and smooth. There,” and as she shook the Indian blanket to replace it as a cover, Gloria saw a black enamelled trunk, exactly like the one she had opened by mistake!
“Your trunk—is just like mine,” she said, as naturally as her surprise permitted.
“Really? I thought I was very much ahead in trunks,” said Pat, easily. “Although I believe the salesman did say the style was going merrily. Glad my key is registered, if it did give me a lot of trouble when I lost it by taking too good care of it.”
“Registered?” Gloria repeated, recalling her experience with the same key fitting the two trunks.
“Yes. That’s a feature of this trunk, and if yours is like it don’t lose your key. There is only one of a kind made, a little difference in each lock, I presume, so the owner is supposed to be key proof. But why this digression? Do you think I am interested in mechanics rather than in Jack?”
“No,” said Gloria, recovering her composure. That trunk mystery seemed to be burying itself deeper daily. Of course she never dreamed of little Pat being a “pirate’s daughter,” but the sudden view of a trunk apparently just like the one in question, had startled her. Now, she must appease Pat’s curiosity without divulging even a hint of Trixy’s early morning adventure, and this would be no simple matter, Gloria knew from experience.
“I’m scared to death of the exams,” she admitted, by way of introduction. “It seems to me, I have done nothing for weeks but try to patch up holes in my prep. work. I wonder if I shall ever be able to stand the college entrance exams?”
“Don’t try. Isn’t this hard enough?” The “trot” book came in for a demonstrative slam.
“But I want to go in for science,” explained Gloria. “You see my early training——”
“Oh, ye-ah, so early you’ll forget it before the educational day is half over,” prophesied Pat. “But about Jack. Let’s go hunt her up. I’ll bet she’s got a wild story to relate, and a wild story would just about save my life this very minute.”