"What good is Latin?" asked Romeo, apparently athirst for information.
"Why--er--mental discipline, mostly," the hara.s.sed guardian had answered.
"Isn"t there anything we"d like that would discipline our minds?"
queried Juliet.
"I fear not," replied the old man, who lacked the diplomacy necessary to deal with the twins. Shortly after that he had died with so little warning that he had only time to make out a check in their favour for the balance entrusted to him. The twins had held high carnival until the money was almost gone. The bequest from the Australian uncle had reached them just in time, so, with thankful hearts, they celebrated and had done so annually ever since.
Untrammelled by convention and restraint, they thrived like weeds in their ancestral domicile, which was now sadly in need of repair.
Occasionally some daring prank set the neighbourhood by the ears, but, for the most part, the twins behaved very well and attended strictly to their own affairs. They ate when they were hungry, slept when they were sleepy, and, if they desired to sit up until four in the morning, reading, they did so. A woman who had a key to the back door came in every morning, at an uncertain hour, to wash the dishes, sweep, dust, and to make the beds if they chanced to be unoccupied.
As Romeo had said, the chimney had blown down and several loose bricks lay upon the roof. They had a small vegetable garden, fenced in, and an itinerant gardener looked after it, in Summer, but they had no flowers, because they maintained a large herd of stray dogs, mostly mongrels, that would have had no home had it not been for the hospitable twins.
Romeo bought the choicest cuts of beef for them and fed them himself.
Occasionally they added another to their collection and, at the last census, had nineteen.
Their house would have delighted Madame Bernard--it was so eminently harmonious and suitable. The ragged carpets showed the floor in many places, and there were no curtains at any of the windows. Romeo cherished a masculine distaste for curtains and Juliet did not trouble herself to oppose him. The furniture was old and most of it was broken.
The large easy chair in the sitting room was almost disembowelled, and springs showed through the sofa, except in the middle, where there was a cavernous depression. Several really fine paintings adorned the walls, and the dingy mantel was glorified by exquisite bits of Cloisonne and iridescent gla.s.s, for which Juliet had a p.r.o.nounced fancy.
"Set the table, will you, Romie?" called Juliet, tying a large blue gingham ap.r.o.n over her sweater. "I"m almost starved."
"So"m I, but I"ve got to feed the dogs first."
"Let "em wait," pleaded Juliet. "Please do!"
"Don"t be so selfish! They"re worse off than we are, for they haven"t even had tea."
While the pack fought, outside, for rib bones and raw steak, Juliet opened a can of salmon, fried some potatoes, put a clean spoon into a jar of jam, and cut a loaf of bread into thick slices. When Romeo came in, he set the table, made coffee, and opened a can of condensed milk.
They disdained to wash dishes, but cleared off the table, after supper, lighted the lamp, and talked automobile until almost midnight.
In less than an hour, Romeo had completed the plans for remodelling the barn. They had no horse, but as a few bits of harness remained from the last equine inc.u.mbent, they usually alluded to the barn as "the bridle chamber."
"We"ll have to name the barn again," mused Juliet, "and we can name the automobile, too."
"Wait until we get it. What colour shall we have?"
"They"re usually red or black, aren"t they?" she asked, doubtfully.
"I guess so. We want ours different, don"t we?"
"Sure. We want something that n.o.body ever had before--something bright and cheerful. Oh, Romie," she continued, jumping up and down in excitement, "let"s have it bright yellow and call it "The Yellow Peril"!"
Her twin offered her a friendly hand. "Jule," he said solemnly, "you"re a genius!"
"We"ll have brown leather inside, and get brown clothes to match. Brown hats with yellow bands on "em--won"t it be perfectly scrumptious?"
"Scrumptious is no word for it. Shall we have two seats or four?"
"Four, of course. A two-seated automobile looks terribly selfish."
"Stingy, too," murmured Romeo, "and we can afford the best."
"Do you know," Juliet suggested, after deep thought, "I think it would be nice of us if we waited to take our first ride until we celebrate for Uncle?"
"It would," admitted Romeo, gloomily, "but it"s such a long time to wait."
"We can learn to run it here in the yard--there"s plenty of room. And on the thirtieth of June, we"ll take our first real ride in it. Be a sport, Romie," she urged, as he maintained an unhappy silence.
"All right--I will," he said, grudgingly. "But I hope Uncle appreciates what we"re doing for him."
"That"s settled, then," she responded, cheerfully. "Then, on our second ride, we"ll take somebody with us. Who shall we invite?"
"Oughtn"t she to go with us the first time?"
"She? Who"s "she"?"
"Miss Ross--Isabel. She suggested it, you know. We might not have thought of it for years."
Juliet pondered. "I don"t believe she ought to go the first time, because the day that Uncle died doesn"t mean anything to her, and it"s everything to us. But we"ll take her on the second trip. Shall I write to her now and invite her?"
"I don"t believe," Romeo responded, dryly, "that I"d stop to write an invitation to somebody to go out four months from now in an automobile that isn"t bought yet."
"But it"s as good as bought," objected Juliet, "because our minds are made up. We may forget to ask her."
"Put it on the slate," suggested Romeo.
In the hall, near the door, was a large slate suspended by a wire. The pencil was tied to it. Here they put down vagrant memoranda and things they planned to acquire in the near future.
Juliet observed that there was only one entry on the slate: "Military hair brushes for R." Underneath she wrote: "Yellow automobile, four- seated. Name it "The Yellow Peril." Brown leather inside. Get brown clothes to match and trim with yellow. First ride, June thirtieth, for Uncle. Second ride, July first, for ourselves. Invite Isabel Ross."
"Anything else?" she asked, after reading it aloud.
"Dog biscuit," yawned Romeo. "They"re eating too much meat."
It was very late when they went up-stairs. Their rooms were across the hall from each other and they slept with the doors open. The attic had been made into a gymnasium, where they exercised and hardened their muscles when the weather kept them indoors. A trapeze had been recently put up, and Juliet was learning to swing by her feet.
She lifted her face up to his and received a brotherly peck on the lips.
"Good-night, Jule."
"Good-night, Romie. Pleasant dreams."
It was really morning, but there was no clock to tell them so, for the timepieces in the Crosby mansion were seldom wound.
"Say," called Romeo.
"What?"
"What do you think of her?"