Page:Betty Gordon at Boarding School.djvu/75

Rh dropped from between the leaves of the last one opened.

Bob, with instinctive courtesy, had offered to help her search, but she had rebuffed him sharply.

"I don't want any boy pawing over my belongings," she informed him tartly.

Bob flushed a little. It was impossible not to help it, but he said nothing. Meeting Betty's indignant eyes, he smiled good-humoredly.

"Sweet pickles!" ejaculated Tommy Tucker indignantly. "Here, you Timothy, hand me that suitcase at your feet—it belongs to the little dark girl."

Libble, "the little dark girl," smiled dreamily as Timothy passed her suitcase to Tommy. She and Timothy Derby, ignoring the jeers of their friends, were deep in two white and gold volumes of poetry. Timothy, Libbie had discovered, had a leaning toward the romantic in fiction, though he preferred his served in rhyme.

The wicked Tommy had a motive in asking for Libbie's suitcase. It was much smaller and lighter than any of the others, and he swung it deftly into the rack over the vinegary lady's unsuspecting head. With a deftness, born it must be confessed of previous practice, he balanced the case on the rim so that the first lurch of the train catapulted the thing down squarely on the