“And the girls, that is Vera, said that she and her brother had a quarrel about the place before they left,” Nancy continued. “Vera is talkative, but I could see myself that Miss Townsend was awfully unhappy about something.”
“Yes,” snapped Ted, again allowing his fork to rest in the prohibited sliding position from his plate, “and she’s the one who talks about Mr. Sanders, too. That girl Veera—”
“Vera, Ted. Just like very,” said Nancy critically.
“Yeah,” groaned Ted. “Just like scary, too. That’s what she is, scary. And the fellows say Mr. Sanders is a first-rate scout, a real scout. They say he’s even a scoutmaster—”
“Did they say anything about his habit of disappearing?” asked Nancy, quizzically.
“Now, Nan. You know very well that isn’t so. It couldn’t be. How could any one dis-sa-peer?” inquired Ted, emphatically.
“That wasn’t the question, brother,” insisted Nancy. “I just asked you if the boys spoke of his reputation as Disappearing Dick?”
This was too much for Ted, and again his mother was forced to intervene.
“Anyway,” the boy managed to interject, “if they did say something about it they didn’t say he was a spook, like your old Very-scary girl told it.”
“Ted Brandon! Nothing about spooks! We never even mentioned them, that I remember. But they said that Mr. Sanders lived somewhere around here but no one knew where, that he went right up the hill to the stone house and never went in the house nor in the barn nor anyplace but just disappeared,” rattled off Nancy.