As Anne led her protegées past the hotel desk, a very polite clerk said: “A ’phone call for you, Miss Stewart, at five-ten P. M.”
Anne was handed the slip and read: “Mr. Latimer called up. Said he would call again at six-thirty.”
“Maybe he wants us to go somewhere, to-night!” suggested Eleanor, eagerly.
“Well, you won’t go to-night, if he does ask you. It’s bed at nine, for everyone of us, because we have a hard day of house-hunting before us, to-morrow,” decreed Anne, courageously.
But Eleanor was given no cause to argue that evening, for Mr. Latimer called up to invite them all to go to the Mardi Gras at Coney Island the following evening. He said the Evans and Latimers would call at the hotel, in two cars, about six o’clock and take them to supper at the Island.
“Oh, goody! I never saw Coney Island but I’ve heard so much about it!” cried Eleanor, dancing about the room.
“I have read how dreadful a place it is,” ventured Polly.
“That’s another point of view, Polly. If you go down there to enjoy the fun and games, and see the ocean, then you will have nothing but frolic and sea. But if one is in quest of crime, then it can be found festering there, just as it is in every other section of a large city,” explained Anne.
“But we are only going for a frolic,” added Eleanor.
“I should hope so!” Polly said, so fervently, that Anne had to laugh heartily.