"Wait, wait!" exclaimed the man. "If you do not care for an original I could make a copy. The one I am to get is something very, very original, and I will have it here. There is no law against making one like it."
"Well," said Cora, "I will be in Breakwater for a few days, and I may call in again. There," as he handed in her blue plates, "these are splendid. Mother has a collection of Baronials."
Then they started off.
Bess drove up to the Whirlwind.
"Why in the world didn't you ask who had ordered the table?" she almost gasped. "If you knew that you could easily have traced it."
"Wait, wait!" exclaimed Cora, in tones so like those of the shop proprietor that the girls all laughed heartily. "I will go to the shop again, and then I will see. Perhaps I will get the original—and then—well, wait—just wait."
"You are a natural born clue hunter!" declared Daisy, "and I am just dying to get back to Aunt May's to tell Duncan."
"Now see here, girls," called Cora very seriously, so that all in-the different machines might hear her, "this is a matter that must not be mentioned to any one. It would spoil all my plans if the merest hint leaked out. Now remember!" and Cora spoke with unusual firmness; "I must have absolute secrecy."
Every girl of them promised. What is dearer to the real girl than a real secret—when the keeping of it involves further delights in its development?
Once back at Bennet Blade the girls whispered and whispered, until Cora declared they would all, forsooth, be attacked with laryngitis, if they did not cease "hissing," and she called upon Doctor Bennet to bear out her statement.