"I ain't casting any insinuations," says one; "but I never have been mixed up in a kidnapping case before, and I guess I won't begin now."
"The sassy thing!" says I, as she bangs the door.
Pinckney looks stunned; but Miss Gerty only laughs.
"Perhaps you'd better let me go out and find some one," says she. "And maybe I'll stay over for a day."
While she was gone Pinckney gets me to take a note up to his man, tellin' him to overhaul the mail and send all the London letters down. That took me less'n an hour, but when I gets back to the hotel I finds Pinckney with furrows in his brow, tryin' to make things right with the manager. He'd only left the twins locked up in the rooms for ten minutes or so, while he goes down for some cigarettes and the afternoon papers; but before he gets back they've rung up everything, from the hall maids to the fire department, run the bath tub over, and rigged the patent fire escapes out of the window.
"Was it you that was tellin' about not wantin' to miss any fun?" says I.
"Don't rub it in, Shorty," says he. "Did you get that blamed Tootle letter?"
He grabs it eager. "Now," says he, "we'll see who these youngsters are to be handed over to, and when."
The twins had got me harnessed up to a chair, and we was havin' an elegant time, when Pinckney gives a groan and hollers for me to come in and shut the door.
"Shorty," says he, "what do you think? There isn't anyone else. I've got to keep them."