suppose we might as well go back."

Echoing her suggestion heartily, me girls started to retrace their steps
when a slight sound in the other room made them stop short in a panic.

"What was that?" Amy questioned, but Mollie held up her hand impatiently.

There came the sound of some one stumbling over something. This was
followed by a muttered exclamation.

While the girls looked about them wildly for a means of escape Mollie
began to laugh hysterically.

"We have a visitor," she announced in a strangled voice. "And he is
between us and the only door in the place. Come on, girls, let's see who
it is."

They stepped out into the cluttered living room and came face to face with
a young man who seemed more startled at seeing them than they had been at
sight of him.

"Well, I'll be jiggered!" he exclaimed, and at sound of the commonplace
phrase the girls could have hugged the speaker in relief. Also they felt a
rather hysterical desire to laugh long and foolishly.

As it was, the stranger stood staring at the girls and the girls at him so
long that the funny side of the situation struck Betty and she really did
begin to laugh.

"We haven't the slightest idea who you are," she told the astonished young