The Dalton twins had something on their minds. Mother felt it. Uncle Jack felt it. Every now and then they forgot to go on eating their breakfast; and when a Dalton went that far, as their uncle remarked, things were getting very bad indeed.
Betty sat and fidgeted. Bob looked as if he would like to pop one question at his uncle, but he managed to hold it in. Finally Betty slid down from her chair, went boldly around to Uncle Jack, and whispered something in his ear. How he threw back his handsome head and laughed!
"Betty, you're a regular mind reader! Why, we're going down to try them on this very morning, and I was just going to tell you to get ready, but you were too quick for me!"
Two hours later Betty, looking very spruce in her new Safety Scout uniform, was dancing up and down before the mirrors while Bob's blouse was having the buttons set over a bit.
"That boy," said the tailor, looking at him with bulging eyes, "has grown smaller since this uniform was measured!"
"If you'd seen the luncheon he tucked away, just before we came over that day to be measured," laughed Uncle Jack, "you'd only wonder that those buttons won't have to be set back at least a foot! Now, where are the trousers?"
"They are up in the shop. Wait, I'll get them. What? You'd like to come along? Up this way, then."
On the second floor they found themselves in a big room that looked like a forest of sewing machines, humming and clicking so fast that at first the twins were fairly bewildered. Girls who, it seemed, could hardly be older than Betty were bending over their machines, sewing away as if for dear life. Most of them did not even look up from their work as the visitors came through.
"The young man's trousers are in this next room," said the tailor, leading the way to a heavy iron door which separated the two rooms on that floor.
"What's the idea of this iron door?" asked Uncle Jack. "To keep a fire from spreading from one department into the other?"