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Rh going. "If she sees me, I will mention nuts and raisins; merely mention them, you know."

But Miss Kling, for once, was napping; perhaps dreaming of him Cyn called the Torpedo—Celeste's father—and she obtained the dish, reached her own door again without being seen by any one except the Duchess, and was congratulating herself on her good luck, when suddenly, like an apparition, Quimby stood before her.

Cyn started, murmured something about "oranges," slipped the soap-dish she had also confiscated into her pocket, and tried to make the big fruit-dish appear as small as possible.

She might, however, have spared herself any uneasiness, for this always the most unobservant of mortals, was too much overburdened with some affair of his own, to notice even a two-quart dish.

"Oh! I—I beg pardon, I—I was coming with a a—request to your room," he said eagerly. "I—would it be too much to—to bring a friend, he knows no one here, and I am sure he and you would fraternize at once, if I might bring him, you know."

"Certainly—yes!" replied Cyn, too anxious to get away to pay much attention to his words, particularly as an odor of steak reached her nostrils.