"I wish I had stayed and put it across," he answered. "If you and the kids would only learn not to blab everything you know. It's the only way to work anything. Minute you tell a thing, it's all off."

There was still a great deal of development work to be put on Ptolemy's moral standard.

"You'll find, my lad," remonstrated Rob, "that honesty is the best policy."

"I'd have been perfectly honest about it," he defended. "I would have told him the truth, and how our parents had deserted us, and how mudder took us in when we were homeless and was bringing us up like her own because she hadn't got any, and how stepdaddy wanted to turn us out, and she wouldn't let him, and then he would have decided against stepdaddy and given mudder the money so she could keep us."

"Ptolemy," I said warningly, "there is a way of telling the truth, or rather of coloring white lies with enough truth to make them deceive, that is more dishonorable than an out and out lie."

"Tell me, Ptolemy," asked Silvia, "how did you know about that offer of five thousand dollars for each child?"

"I overheard it," he said guardedly; "but I can't remember where."

"He heard me say so," confessed Huldah.

"It was when he first come here and he was making us so much trouble, and I told him it was too bad we had to have other folks' brats around when, if we only had our own, they'd be bringing in something."

The recital now broke up and Silvia sat down to write a long explanatory letter to Uncle Issachar. The next morning I procured her a check from the First National Bank and she filled it out.

"Oh!" she said with indrawn breath, when she had asked me how to write twenty-five thousand dollars, "I never expected to be able to sign my name to a check for such an amount."

"You never will again, I fear," was my sad prophecy.

"It must feel rich," said Beth, "just to have a large check pa.s.s through your fingers."

"Them Three" came the nearest to tears that they were able to do.

"We worked so hard for it," they sighed.

"So did I!" muttered Huldah.

"I couldn't live a double life," declared Silvia.

CHAPTER XVIII

_In Which I Decide on Extreme Measures_

Everyone in our house, which was now filled to overflowing--in fact, there were Polydores on sofas and in beds on the floor--save Silvia and myself, was on the alert for a response to the letter during the succeeding few days. Knowing Uncle Issachar, we felt sure he would make no response, or notice the matter in any way save to cash the check promptly.

The monotony was somewhat relieved by the difficulties under which Beth and Rob were pursuing their courtship. On the third evening succeeding our return, Silvia and I started upstairs early to give them a chance to have the exclusive use of the library, the Polydores having all been sent to bed. As we were making some plausible excuse for going to our room, Beth remarked with a smile:

"Your motive in retiring so early is commendable, but of no particular benefit to Rob and me. The Polydores, like the poor, we always have with us."

"I saw that every one of them except Ptolemy was in bed at eight o'clock last night and the night before," said Silvia. "You don't mean to tell me--"

"Yes, I do mean," laughed Beth. "Not Ptolemy, though. He has become too dignified to spy on us, but last night as we sat here on the settee, we heard a suppressed sneeze, and Rob pulled Emerald from underneath."

"How in the world did he ever squeeze under there?" I asked, gazing at the slight s.p.a.ce between the floor and settee.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "We heard a suppressed sneeze, and Rob pulled Emerald from underneath."]

"He did look a little flattened, as if he had been put in a letter press," said Rob. "I gave him a dime to go to bed and stay there. Beth and I had just resumed our conversation when a still, small voice said: 'I'll go to bed for a dime, too.' I then hauled Demetrius from behind the davenport."

"And the night before," said Beth, "when we were sitting on the porch, Pythagoras rolled off the roof, where he had been listening to us, and came down into the vines."

"Now I'll stop that," I declared. "I'll tie them in their beds and lock the doors and windows."

"No," refused Rob. "I'd like to try to circ.u.mvent them by their own weapons of wits. I have a little plan which I don't dare whisper to you lest their long-range ears get in their work. We are just about to start for a walk."

"In this pouring rain!" protested Silvia.

"We like the rain," he replied, "and we--are not going far."

Pythagoras entered the room just then and looked astounded and disappointed when he saw Beth and Rob departing.

"We are going out to a small party," Rob remarked to me, casually.

It was after eleven when we heard them returning.

"Do you suppose they have been walking all this time?" said Silvia in concern. "Beth wore no rubbers."

The next day was Sunday and Huldah put into execution a plan for procuring one happy hour each week. This plan was the admission of the Polydores, _en ma.s.se_, to one of the Sunday schools. She chose the church most remote from home so they would be a long time going and coming, which she said would "help some."

"Now," said Beth, as she watched them march away, "I can dare to tell you where we spent last evening. We were at the Polydore house next door. There is a little vine-screened porch on the other side of the house. Rob managed to open one of the windows and brought out a couple of chairs. It was as snug as could be."

"I'll corral them every night," I said, "until you make your getaway, and I'll give you the key so you can go inside when it is cool or stormy."

"We'll go around the block by way of precaution," said Rob.

Presently Huldah returned from the Sunday school with triumphant mien.

"They made them all into one cla.s.s and put a redheaded woman with spectacles in for their teacher. I gave them street car tickets to come home on."

When the Polydores returned, however, they were dragging Diogenes along and he looked quite weary.

"Didn't you come home on the street car?" I asked Ptolemy.

"No; we sold our tickets and got ice cream sodas," he explained. "We took turns carrying Diogenes on our backs."

"You only had one ticket for yourself, and two half fares for Thag and Emmy," said Huldah suspiciously. "I thought Meetie and Di could ride free. You couldn't have sold them tickets for enough for sodies."

"Rob gave us three nickels to put in the plate," said Pythagoras. "We only put in one of them, seeing we were all in one family and one cla.s.s. That gave us four nickels for ice cream sodas and the clerk gave Di half a gla.s.s some one had left."

"I gave you a penny for Di to put in," said Huldah. "What did you do with that?"