“You have forgotten about the visitor to our room in the night.”
“Yes,” admitted Nance, “there is that visitor. Who was she? What did she want? You haven’t missed anything, have you?”
“No,” replied Molly. “I have nothing valuable enough to steal except old Martin Luther, and he’s quite safe.”
She reached for the china pig on the bookshelves and shook him carefully. His interior gave out a musical jingle.
Clothed and fed and comforted, the two girls leaned back in their Morris chairs, with extra cups of coffee resting on the chair arms, to consider the question of Judy’s slipper. At last they came to a mutual agreement.
Otoyo, the safest, discreetest and least inquisitive of their friends, was to be taken partly into their confidence and left to look after Judy while they went on their mysterious errand. Otoyo, who had the racial peculiarity of the Japanese of never being surprised at anything, accepted this position of trust without a comment. Few students took Sunday morning walks at Wellington, and therefore morning was the safest time for the expedition. Judy, reënforced with a soft-boiled egg and a cup of coffee, appeared perfectly rational and quiet. She surrendered the slipper without a murmur, and turning over on her side dropped off to sleep. A Not-at-Home sign was hung on the door and Otoyo was cautioned not to let any one into Judy’s room. She was to say to all callers that Judy had a headache and was asleep.
Dressed for a tramp, with Judy’s slipper in one of the deep pockets of Nance’s ulster, and a knife, fork and table spoon for digging purposes in the other, the two girls presently left Otoyo on the floor immersed in study. They had scarcely closed the door when Judy called from the next room:
“Bring me that slipper, Otoyo.”
And the little Japanese, with a puzzled look on her face, obeyed.
As they hastened down the corridor, hoping devoutly not to meet intimate friends, Molly and Nance were stopped by the irrepressible Minerva Higgins.