Skippy again considered.
"She doesn't scare worth a darn," he acknowledged to himself. Instead of applying the gag he departed to the opposite side, sat down and began to think. At the end of a long moment he rose and approached her with a brisk set manner.
"So you're going to tell, are you?"
"You just bet I'm going to tell, you coward!"
"All right, tell then!" He stooped, freed her legs and arms and rose. "Tell if you've made up your mind to—but God help you if you do. That's all I have to say."
"You can't scare me," said Tootsie, but already intrigued by the new plan of action which she divined behind her brother's silence.
"No, but there's some one I can scare!" said Skippy, unlocking the door. "All right! War to the knife, Miss Tootsie! Remember, though, I warned you!"
"Who are you threatening now?" said Tootsie, trying to conceal her anxiety; for long association had engendered a lively respect for the Skippy imagination.
"I never threaten," said Skippy disdainfully, "but if that red-haired, knock-kneed, overfed beau of yours ever sets foot on this place again, he comes in a hearse! And what goes for him, goes for all! Go on and tell, but you'll have the loneliest summer you've ever had, young lady!"
Five minutes later a treaty of peace was concluded on the basis of secret understandings secretly arrived at, and Miss Tootsie Bedelle replaced the dressmaker's figure in the arms of the triumphant diplomat while the phonograph gave forth the strains of the Washington Post.