"Where's Mrs. Brown--and the tortoise?"

"Great Scott!" Jim looked round blankly. "That never occurred to me.
Where is she, I wonder?"

The course was empty.

"Tortoise got away with her!" laughed Wally.

"H'm," said Jim. "We'll track her to her lair."

In her lair--the kitchen--Mrs. Brown was discovered, modestly hiding
behind the door. The tortoise was on the table, apparently cheerful.

"Poor dear pet!" said Mrs. Brown. "He wouldn't run. I don't think he was
awake to the situation, Master Jim, dear, so I just carried him over--I
didn't think it mattered which way I ran--and my scones were in the
oven! They're just out--perhaps you'd all try them?"--this
insinuatingly. "I don't think this tortoise comes of a racing
family!"--and the great menagerie race concluded happily in the kitchen
in what Wally called "a hot buttered orgy."




CHAPTER IV



JIM'S IDEA