Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/339

 the Raddelle girls, and two or three others. I'll give you a list later, if you like."

"All right, go ahead."

"It happened, as I say, just before dinner; about half past seven. It was quite dark. We don't light up much outside,—there was nothing going on at that time. Well, I heard her door open, and then she was pounding on mine, and she called out, 'John, John! Come here quick!' I opened the door, half-dressed as I was, and she was in a deuce of a funk. She grabbed me by the arm and pulled me down the hall and shut her door. Then she said, 'Oh! what shall I do?' I said, 'What's the matter, Ethel? Have you been robbed?' She was nearly fainting, and I thought she would drop before she could speak. But finally I got it out of her. And her story was a wonder, and that's a fact!"

Shaw, in his excitement, rose and gesticulated.

"She had sent her maid out of the room for something, and had her back to the French window and was stooping to pick up a comb, when she heard the sash open, and she looked around in a fright. There, standing right in front of her, was a big black gorilla, bowing to her."

"H'm!" Astro concealed his amusement.

"Wait! I made her tell me the story half a dozen times, and it was the same each time. The thing had on a silk hat, and a Peter Pan collar, a red necktie, and white kid gloves, and pearl gray spats buttoned around his knees."

Astro could control his mirth no longer, and his grave demeanor exploded in a gust of hilarity. Shaw, despite his anxiety, had to join the laugh.