Page:Jean Webster--Much ado about Peter.djvu/160

152 "Perhaps the place is haunted!" Master Jerome put forth the suggestion with wide eyes.

"Haunted nothin'," Peter growled. "It was a pretty live ghost that got off with them lap-robes durin' the two minutes the stable was empty."

"They were the old ones," Bobby consoled him. "At least it was kind of him not to take the best ones when they were just as convenient."

"Do you fink it's gypsies?" Master Augustus asked the question with a fearful glance over his shoulder. He had been told that gypsies carried off bad little boys.

"I don't know what it is," Peter said sullenly, "but if I ever ketches anybody snooping about this place who has no business to snoop" The sentence ended in a threatening silence.

The four boys looked at one another and shuddered delightedly.

"It's like a book," Master Wallace declared. "The miscreant has foiled us at every turn."