Aunt Min stood wringing her hands and moaning: “Such terrible things could happen to them. Charlie, don’t you remember that awful Chinaman that killed a girl in New York and put her in a trunk where they didn’t find her for ages and ages afterwards?”
“Ellen is so little. Oh! why didn’t I go with them?” and Jack cursed himself roundly for not taking care of the girl with whom he was in love.
Charlie was seated in a lounging chair taking the whole affair quite calmly. “Jack, please behave as though you had some sense. Those girls are about twenty years old, both of them with the average amount of intelligence, plenty of money in their pockets, and both on the outside of a good lunch. So they won’t starve to death and, if they are lost, they can grab a taxi and come to the hotel. I’m willing to bet on Plain Jane’s ingenuity to get ’em home even if they are both dead and in some Chinaman’s laundry bag. Probably what really happened is that they met someone they know and went some place for tea,” and Charlie went on peacefully eating chocolate creams.
“Oh! it is all very well for you to talk, but just suppose it was Mabel Wing who was lost and not Ellen. How about it then?” Jack asked.
“Mabel is too big to lose, so that is one thing I don’t have to worry about,” answered Charlie.
“Anyway, let’s go down in the lobby and wait,” said Aunt Min and led the way.
Once there they took seats facing the entrance and glued their eyes to the door. Consequently, when the girls came in flanking a big policeman, Aunt Min, Jack, and Charlie rose simultaneously and advanced upon them.
Aunt Min cried: “Thank heavens, Charlie Preston knows law! Jane Pellew, what have you done now?”
Jack beside himself was squeezing Ellen’s hand and saying: “Ellen, I am so glad they didn’t take you to jail first. I just know Charlie and I can fix it up with the cop.”