"No. What?"
"These pies are for bait."
"To bait hooks with?" I exclaimed.
"Hooks! No, you silly man. They're for baiting the cage. He means to trap these transparent creatures in a cage baited with pie."
She laughed scornfully; inserted the burned tip of her finger in her mouth and stood looking at me defiantly like a flushed and bright-eyed school-girl.
"You think you're teasing me," she said; "but you do not realize what a singularly slow-minded young man you are."
I stopped laughing. "How did you come to the conclusion that pies were to be used for such a purpose?" I asked.
"I deduce," she observed, with an airy wave of her disengaged hand.
"Your deductions are weird—like everything else in this vicinity. Pies to catch invisible monsters? Pooh!"
"You're not particularly complimentary, are you?" she said.