"Look here, Miss--Miss Patricia," Mr. Dick said, "why can't we stay
here, where we are? It's very comfortable--that is, it's livable.
There's plenty of fresh air, anyhow, and everybody's shouting for fresh
air nowadays. They've got somebody to take my place in the house."

"And father needn't know a thing--you can fix that," broke in Mrs. Dick.
"And after your wedding he will be in a better humor; he'll know it's
over and not up to him any more."

Miss Patty came back to the shelter-house again and sat down on the soap
box.

"We MIGHT carry it off," she said. "If I could only go back to town!
But father is in one of his tantrums, and he won't go, or let me go.
The idea!--with Aunt Honoria on the long-distance wire every day, having
hysterics, and my clothes waiting to be tried on and everything. I'm
desperate."

"And all sorts of things being arranged for you!" put in Mrs. Dick
enviously. "And the family jewels being reset in Vienna for you and all
that! It would be great--if you only didn't have to take Oskar with the
jewels!"

Miss Patty frowned.

"You are not going to marry him," she said, with a glance at Mr. Dick,
who, with his coat off, was lying flat on the floor, one arm down in the
hole where the things had been hidden, trying to hook up a can of baked
beans. "If it doesn't turn out well, you and father have certainly done