"Well, how are Dee and I to fight it out the way you have brought us up to do if we have got some old mutt in here with us? We might just as well have left our boxing gloves at home."
"Oh, Dum, you are making it hard for me," said poor Mr. Tucker.
"That's good, I want to make it hard," sobbed the wretched Dum.
"I have told you over and over that I think it best for you and Dee to have to control yourselves more, and the only way to do it is to realize how your tantrums affect other people. You are the best old Tweedles in the world, but you have no self-control. I am surely sorry for your roommate, whoever she may be."
"Well," broke in Dee, "I think it all depends on who she is. I must say it is some lottery. Roommates ought to be carefully chosen; one should not just trust to this grab-bag method."
"Well, how do you know Miss Peyton has not chosen someone she feels will be suitable? I wish it would turn out to be somebody like the little girl on the train. Don't you, Tweedles?"
"Yes, yes!" tweedled Tweedles. "But no such luck."
This reassured me and I knocked on the open door. There was perfect silence, broken only by the sound of Dum's blowing her nose and Mr. Tucker's clearing his throat; and then a faint little "Come in," from both girls.
"Oh, it's you! How good of you to come look us up!" exclaimed Mr. Tucker. "We were afraid it was the hated roommate. Tweedles are treating me so terribly because I insist on their having a roommate so they can broaden out a bit and learn to control themselves some, which they will never do so long as they stay together all the time. I'll leave it to you, Miss Page, don't you think it will be best?"
"Well, I have a delicacy in saying," laughed I. "You see, I am that poor unfortunate, despised roommate. This is 117 Carter Hall, isn't it?"