“If you had had to carry out all those things—­” I began, but she checked me.

“Listen!” she said.  “Somebody with brains has got to take you young people in hand.  You’re not able to look after yourselves.  I’m fond of Alan Pierce, for one thing, and I don’t care to see a sanatorium that might have been the child of my solicitude kidnaped and reared as a summer hotel by Papa Thoburn.  A good fat man is very, very good, Minnie, but when he is bad he is horrid.”

“It’s too late,” I objected feebly.  “He can’t get it now.”

“Can’t he!” She got up and yawned, stretching.  “Well, I’ll lay you ten to one that if we don’t get busy he’ll have the house empty in thirty-six hours, and a bill of sale on it in as many days.”

The celluloid mirror blazed up at that minute, and she poured the contents of my water-pitcher over the dresser.  For the next hour, while I was emptying water out of the bureau drawers and hanging up my clothes to dry, she told me what she knew of Thoburn’s scheme, and it turned me cold.

But I went to bed finally.  Just as I was dozing off, somebody opened my door, and I heard a curious scraping along the floor.  I turned on the light, and there was Arabella, half-dragging and half-carrying a solid silver hand-mirror with a card on it:  “To Minnie, to replace the one that blew up.  J. S.”

CHAPTER XXVII

A CUPBOARD FULL OF RYE

Doctor Barnes came to me at the news stand the next morning before gymnasium.

“Well,” he said, “you look as busy as a dog with fleas.  Have you heard the glad tidings?”

“What?” I asked without much spirit.  “I’ve heard considerable tidings lately, and not much of it has cheered me up any.”

He leaned over and ran his fingers up through his hair.

“You know, Miss Minnie,” he said, “somebody ought kindly to kill our friend Thoburn, or he’ll come to a bad end.”

“Shall I do it, or will you?” I said, filling up the chewing-gum jar.  (Mr. Pierce had taken away the candy case.)

Doctor Barnes glanced around to see if there was any one near, and leaned farther over.

“The cupboard isn’t empty now!” he said.  “Not for nothing did I spend part of the night in the Dicky-bird’s nest!  By the way, did you ever hear that touching story about little Sally walking up and laying an egg?—­I see you have.  What do you think is in the cupboard?”

“I know about it,” I said shortly.  “Liquor—­in a case labeled ‘Books—­breakable.’”

“‘Sing a song of sixpence, a cupboard full of rye!’” he said.  “Almost a goal!  But not only liquors, my little friend.  Champagne—­cases of it—­caviar, canned grouse with truffles, lobster, cheeses, fine cigars, everything you could think of, erotic, exotic and narcotic.  An orgy in cans and bottles, a bacchanalian revel:  a cupboard full of indigestion, joy, forgetfulness and katzenjammer.  Oh, my suffering palate, to have to leave it all without one sniff, one sip, one nibble!”