"Didn't I catch you snifflin'?" demands Ellery. "And ain't you been mopin' around?"
"Oh!" says she. "But that was before Andy had promised to let me play the lead in his new eight-reel feature, 'The Singed Moth.' I've been chipper enough since, haven't I, Andy, dear?"
"Slow poison!" echoes Zosco. "Jewel stealing! Murder plots! Boy, where did you get such stuff in your head?"
But Ellery can only drop his chin and scrape his toe.
"I expect I can clear up that mystery," says I. "As a movie fan Ellery is an ace."
And then it was Zosco's turn to stare. I don't know whether it got clear home to him then or not. He was just about to separate himself from some remark on the subject when Mrs. Jake cut loose with another squeal.
"Why, Jake Zosco!" says she. "Look at you! Like a tramp you are."
"Well, why not?" says Jake. "Didn't I sleep last night in a wheelbarrow?"
And when the folks you're callin' on get to droppin' into intimate personal remarks like that it's time to back out graceful. I guess even Mrs. Robert decides this wasn't just the evenin' to play the pipe organ. Before we'd got out they'd opened up the subject of what to do with young Ellery Bean and the prospects were that he was due for a quick return to Shelby, N. C.
"I don't see what good that's going to do," says Vee. "I should say that he needed some kind of mental treatment. Why, his poor foolish head seems to be filled with nothing but crime and crooks. I don't understand how he could get that way."