“Not so full as Lina Rosenbug,” was on Dotty’s lips, but she did not let it come out.
It was at this very moment that she missed her pencil. Feeling a little nervous, she had unconsciously put her hand in her pocket.
“Why, where was her screw-up pencil?”
Dotty explored the depths of her pocket; there was no pencil there, and no hole either.
“I put it in, and I never took it out; and where did it go to?”
Dotty’s mind went into a fog, but suddenly came out as bright as a sunbeam.
“That’s why Lina wanted to keep me drinking, so I shouldn’t remember; and that was when she put her hand in and took it.”
Dotty could hardly wait for school to be out.
“Lina,” she cried, the moment they were out of doors, “I know what you meant when you kept me drinking your bitters, and now I’ve found you out! Who’d you s’pose stole my screw-up pencil? You did!”