“Why isn’t it, smartie?”
“Roderick Fitzhugh! Marmaduke Midchester!” David repeated the names of some of the other people he had met at the Gables. “Stuff and nonsense, Benjie! They made them up.”
Ben said nothing, and after a few minutes David began again.
“Where’d they get those clothes?”
“Where do people usually get their clothes? Tailors and dressmakers made them, I suppose.”
“What are they? A crowd of actors?”
Ben smiled. “They’re not professional actors. They’re doing a play that Mr. Fitzhugh wrote for the moving-pictures, and they like their costumes so much they keep them on most of the time. I’m in the pictures,” he added in a tone of pride.
The car clattered loudly over a rough stretch of road. Then David resumed his questions. “How in thunder did you happen to get mixed up with them?”
“I was driving along this morning and I met Mr. Fitzhugh and he suggested that we go on a hunt for hooked-rugs.”
“Hooked-rugs!” exploded David.