"We wanted him to put it in, and when they took up the collection, he wouldn"t give it," said Emerald. "I tried to take it away from him and he swallowed it. The redhead teacher was awful scared, but I told her he was used to swallowing things and that you said he carried a whole department store in his insides."
"Poor little Di," said Silvia; "it"s the only way he has of keeping things away from you all."
That night I saw to it personally that each and every Polydore was in his little bed. It should have aroused my suspicions that none of them rebelled, or had evinced the slightest degree of interest or curiosity when Beth and Rob announced their intention of going out for the evening.
At ten-thirty the lovers returned, bringing in Pythagoras, who was clad in his pajamas.
"Where did you pick him up?" I asked in astonishment.
"He picked us up," said Beth.
"He was wise, maybe, in discovering where we were," said Rob, "but he fell down when he tried to work off the ghost screeches on us. We recognized them at once, and ran him down inside, so our party broke up."
"Come here, Pythagoras," I commanded.
He obeyed promptly and fearlessly.
"How did you know they were there, and when did you go over there?"
"I was playing over in our house today," he replied, "and I found one of Beth"s hairpins with the little stones in, in the big chair, so I knew that was where they hid last night. As soon as you went down stairs tonight, I got out the window and slid down the roof and came over to scare them."
"You"ve missed a lot of sleep the last few nights," I said quietly, "so you will have to make it up. You can stay in bed all day tomorrow."
"Hold on, Lucien!" exclaimed Rob. "Tomorrow"s the big baseball game of the season, and I promised to take them all."
"So much the better," I said. "He will learn to mind."
Pythagoras looked as if he had been struck, and quickly put his arms across his eyes. In a moment his shoulders were heaving. At last I had found a vulnerable spot in the stoic, and I began to relent.
"See here, Pythagoras," I said, "if I let you up in time to go to the game, will you promise me something?"
"Anything," came in a m.u.f.fled voice.
"Will you promise not to spy on Beth and Rob and keep Emerald and Demetrius from doing it?"
"Yes," he promised quickly, his arm coming down and his face brightening. "Sure I will, but I did want to hear what they said."
"Why?" asked Rob interestedly.
"We"re getting up a show, and Em is going to take the part of a girl and he spoons with Tolly, and we didn"t know what to have them say to each other."
"I"ll rehea.r.s.e you on the play, and prompt you," said Beth with a little giggle.
"Come on upstairs with me now," I said to Pythagoras.
When I landed him at his door, he leaned up against me, and rubbed his cheek against my arm.
"Thank you for letting me go to the game," he said.
I found myself responding to his affectionate advance. This would clearly never do. I couldn"t let another Polydore squeeze himself into my regard.
"Silvia," I said abruptly, as I came into our room, "we must really make some immediate plan for disposing of the Polydores, or, at least, of "Them Three.""
"Huldah is managing them tolerably well," demurred Silvia. "Since they depreciated in market value from five thousand per to nothing, she has resumed her former harsh treatment of them."
"Well, we are not going to keep them," I replied with finality. "We are under no obligations to do so. I am going to put them in a school for boys and use the blank check Felix Polydore left to pay for their tuition."
"I suppose that is what we will have to do," she admitted with a little sigh. "Yet, Lucien, it doesn"t seem quite right. If they are in a boys" school, they will keep on right along the same lines. They need home influence and contact with women. Demetrius is fond of music and will sit still and listen when I play. Emerald obeyed me today the first time I spoke, and I even thought I saw a glimmer of good in Pythagoras."
I didn"t tell her that this glimmer was what had decided me to dispose of him.
"It would, doubtless, be better for them to stay," I admitted, "but I am not going to be a martyr to the cause. They are going."
The next morning I wrote for catalogues and prospectus to the different schools, and I felt as if three old men of the sea had been lifted from my shoulders.
CHAPTER XIX
_Which Has to Do with Some Letters_
One morning when I came down to my office, I found a letter postmarked from the city in which Uncle Issachar lived addressed to me. I opened it and found inclosed, with seal unbroken, the letter Silvia had mailed to her uncle and which she had marked "personal." There was a note addressed to me accompanying it:
"Dear Sir:
"I am returning herewith your personal letter to Mr. Innes, as he has gone to South America and left no forwarding address. Should such be received from him at any future date, you will be duly notified thereof.
"Very truly yours, "Chester K. Winslow, "Secretary."
I read the above to Silvia at luncheon. She was grievously disappointed because her uncle had not received her letter of explanation.
"It is most fortunate," she said, "that I sent it in one of your office envelopes."
As usual, she had found the bright spot she always looked for and generally discovered.
"I wouldn"t care," she said, "to have Uncle Issachar"s private secretary or the dead-letter office know all our private affairs, but I shall feel like an impostor until Uncle Issachar is undeceived."
"I feel a hunch," said Rob, "that Uncle Issachar will run across Doctor Felix and his wife down there in Chili and find you out."
"He may run across the Polydores," I replied, "but he"ll never find out from them that they are the parents of Silvia"s children. They would not mention a subject in which they have so little interest."
"But," argued Beth, "naturally they"d tell him where they lived, and then, of course, he"d say he had a niece living in the same town. They would inquire her name and inform him that they were her near neighbors, and then he"d tell them what fine sons you have, and then, of course, the Polydores would claim their own."
"Which theory goes to show," said Silvia, "how little you know Uncle Issachar and the Polydore seniors. He would not think of speaking to strangers, and if he did, he wouldn"t say any of those usual conversational things you mentioned. The Polydores wouldn"t be interested, in the least, in knowing he had a niece unless she happened to know something about antiques, and if he should describe her children, she wouldn"t recognize them."
After luncheon I went out on the porch. While I sat there, the mail carrier came along and handed me a letter--a returned letter. It was directed in Ptolemy"s round hand to Mr. Issachar Innes. He had evidently used the envelope to Silvia"s letter to her uncle as his model, for the address was written in the same way. "Personal" was added in the left-hand corner, and his name and our house number was in the upper left-hand corner.