“Then I’m to tell the Chief that you’ll drop in tonight?” he was saying.  “All right, sir, that’ll be satisfactory, of course.  I’m not overly fond of this sort of work, but when a woman makes a complaint, you know, we haven’t much choice.”

“I understand,” Daddy Morrison’s deep, pleasant voice answered.  “I’ll get at the truth, and tell the Chief I’ll be down at the town hall before ten o’clock.  Good-night, Dougherty.”

“Good-night, sir,” said Mr. Dougherty and the screen door slammed.

Daddy Morrison came back to the dining-room.

“Rhodes and Elizabeth, I want to speak to you,” he said very gravely.  “Come up to my den.”

Sister’s small face went very white.

“I didn’t mean to, honest I didn’t, Jimmie!” she cried, hurling herself on that astonished young man and clinging desperately to his coat lapels.  “I didn’t know they were there till they fell over.”

“What ails her?” Jimmie demanded, staring at his father.  “What fell over?”

“Your case of butterflies,” Brother informed him sadly “We were playing out in the barn and Betty reached up to open a window and the pole knocked the box off.”

“Well, I must say—­” began Jimmie wrathfully.  “I must say!  If you two don’t learn to leave my things alone—­”

“Save your lecture, Jimmie,” advised his father quickly.  “I didn’t know about the butterflies, but I want to ask the children about something else.  Come upstairs, now.  You, too, Mother.”

Brother and Sister followed Mother and Daddy Morrison upstairs, puzzled to know what was to be said to them.  If the butterflies made so little difference to anyone—­except Jimmie, who was perfectly boiling, it was plain to see—­what else was there to scold them about?  For that it was to be a scolding neither Brother or Sister doubted—­hadn’t Daddy called them “Rhodes” and “Elizabeth”?

“Now,” said Daddy Morrison, when they were all in the little room he called his den and he had closed the door, although it was a warm night, “what were you doing this afternoon?”

“Playing in the barn,” answered Brother.  “It wasn’t locked, Daddy.”

“And then you broke Jimmie’s case of butterflies,” said Daddy.  “What did you do then?”

“We swept the glass under a pad,” said Sister, finding her voice.  “Did Jimmie tell Mr. Dougherty?”

“Jimmie didn’t know, and he certainly would not tell the police,” declared Daddy Morrison, smiling a little in spite of his evident anxiety.  “Miss Putnam, children, has made a complaint to the police that you tracked fresh tar over her porch and sidewalk, and she wants you to clean it off.  That was why Mr. Dougherty came tonight.”

“We won’t either clean it off!” cried Brother angrily.  “Serve her right to clean it off herself; mean old thing!”

“Don’t let me hear you talk like that again,” said Daddy Morrison sternly.  “Did either of you have anything to do with putting tar on her porch or walk?”