Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/271

 "You don't mean to say," she breathed, "that it's really the fortune of the Ingrams!"

"I suppose it's really you I'm talking to," Mark said. "I don't even yet see how on earth you happen to be real. But it is the fortune of the Ingrams. You wait! We don't open it here, with the vulgar eye of the multitude upon us."

"But what about the baby?" Mr. Bolliver demanded suddenly. "I knew there couldn't be one—and there isn't."

"But there was!" the boys cried together, like a Greek chorus. And the tale of Ping-Pong was told. "Oh, why didn't you keep her!" Jane mourned. "I could have brought her up to be a—a—what is it, now?"

"An ornament to the community?" Mr. Bolliver suggested.

"Yes," Alan said, "I can see the aunts standing for any Chinee baby roaming about their premises!"

"She certainly threw me off the scent," Mr. Bolliver said. And off went the talk at a tangent, leading finally to the discovery of the mixed telegrams. (Mark had read and reread