Page:Ballinger Price--Us and the Bottle Man.djvu/48

Rh into the lawn. We did a quick secret consultation and then decided to let her in on the Castaway. So we bolted after her and took away the trowel and showed her the letter. She read it through twice, and then said:

"Oh, Ailsa must hear this, and Father!"

But what we wanted to know was whether or not we might write to the Castaway, because we did n't quite want to without letting her know about it. She laughed some more and said, "yes, we might," and that he was "a dear," which was what we thought.

We decided that we would write immediately, so Jerry dashed off to Father's study and got two sheets of nice thin paper with "17 Luke Street" at the top in humpy green letters, and I borrowed Aunt Ailsa's fountain-pen, which turned out to be empty. I might have known it, for they always are empty when you need them 34