"You were going to eat your head if the name of Coulter was on the bottom of this basket, remember."
"Oh!" Carl grinned a sickly grin.
"Going to default?"
"No, not default—merely postpone the ceremony," Carl declared.
"Oh, you old crawler! Well, if you are going to put off the show I must be getting home or Mother will think I have been waylaid and my watch stolen. So long, everybody, and pleasant dreams." Then thrusting his face back into the room through the narrowing crack of the door, he added with elfish leer, "Just the same, I still think that Coulter had something to do with those baskets."
Before a protest could be raised the door banged and he was gone.
CHAPTER XIII
HAL REPEATS HIS VISIT
Whoever the mysterious Mr. X was he succeeded in keeping his identity a secret much better than did the donors of the O'Dowd's Christmas dinner. A secret when shared by too many becomes no secret at all and so, alas, it proved in this case. And yet no deliberate prattling divulged the story. Its betrayal was purely accidental.