"No such thing. I'm not crying," and he shamelessly blew his nose.
I afterwards learned that one of the characteristics of this delightful trio was that they thought there was no more shame in crying than laughing. They laughed in church if there was anything to laugh at, and cried at a picnic or farce-comedy if anything turned up to move them to tears. "We don't bawl," Dee said to me once, "we just leak. It is all a matter of tear ducts. We can't help it any more than you could help sneezing if someone shook pepper in your face."
A train was called. It was not ours, but "Orphan Annie" jumped nervously from her seat. She dropped her shabby little hand-bag, which she had just opened for the hundredth time to make sure her ticket was safe or to compare her Ingersoll watch with the clock in the station, and the contents of the bag rolled to the floor. I dived to assist her and the person called Zebedee did the same. Of course we bumped heads, and while we were apologizing, Dum and Dee picked up the scattered belongings and returned them to the poor, abashed girl.
"I just knew you were going to Gresham," said Dee, handing her the much-thumbed ticket, "and wondered how long it would take us to get to the point of speaking to you."
"You are for Gresham, too," said Dum, turning to me. "I have been longing to know you. I might have known that old Zebedee would end by butting in."
Here Zebedee took off his hat and bowed to "Orphan Annie" and me as though we were of the blood royal, and said with a most engaging manner:
"We had best introduce ourselves and then all the conventionalities will be observed. Conventionality is a mighty important thing for boarding school girls to observe. These are the Tucker twins, called Tweedles when you want both of them or aren't particular which one answers. This red-headed one is Dum; this blue-headed one, Dee. They have other official names, but somehow I can't remember them to-day. I am Jeffry Tucker, at your service, the father of the Heavenly Twins."
"Father! You, their father!" I gasped.
"Certainly. Whose father did you think I was?"
"James' and John's," I answered flippantly.