"Why, in heaven's name, should it want to get in my room?" she said, with a return of her usual composure. "That sounds rather silly to me."
"I suppose I shouldn't be telling you this, Pat," I said, doubtfully, "as you're still very young, and—"
"I don't think you can tell me much I don't know," she interrupted. "Anyway, Niki is going to act as the creature's guard and valet, and he's very much pleased about it."
"Oh, Niki will do anything, now, short of murder, to please Henry," I said; "he's hot after that $25,000 reward. But the whole matter to me—now prepare yourself—'ain't what you'd call natural.' If putting a big chimpanzee in our bedchamber de luxe, and giving it valet service, isn't the act of a lunatic, I don't know what is."
"I agree with you," Pat rejoined, "but I'm afraid, as far as Uncle Henry is concerned, the matter is hopeless. We must try to get his point of view."
"No; I'll be darned if I will!" I said to myself. Then I said, aloud: "Anyway, you will lock your door carefully, Pat?"
"I always do," she replied, laughing, and left me.
She had no sooner gone, when McGinity came downstairs, and we had breakfast together. He didn't say very much; apparently he was lost in thought. My mind was too confused to work properly, but while we ate, in strained silence, I was trying to think a way out of all the mess as best I could. Presently, McGinity broke the silence by exclaiming, partly to himself: "That terrible ape in the same house with Pat! Think of it!"
"I have thought, to my own shame, and to the shame of our house," I returned. "But Henry seems to think this visitor from Mars the gentlest thing alive."
"My hands are tied," he said, despondently. "Can't you suggest something?"