"No, thank you! I won't try," cried Lucy Poole, laughing and shaking her curls. "When he goes to make believe whisper in your ear, he'll bite you! I wouldn't trust that old witch!"

The others laughed hilariously at this; but Trix Severn was pushing forward. If there was a gold piece to be given away, she wanted first chance at it--string, or no string.

"Keep your eyes on the pan!" cried the witch, waving empty hands in the air all about the pan and taboret, to show that there was "no flim-flam," as the boys called it. "Now! first neophyte step forward!"

"I don't believe he knows what that means," giggled Myra Stetson. "I don't."

But she could not step in before Trix. Miss Severn pushed to the front and was nearest to the master of ceremonies.

"Give me a chance!" she cried. "You're going to lose your old gold piece."

"It's a perfectly new one, Trixie," whispered somebody, shrilly. "It isn't old at all!"

Without a word the witch beckoned the girl inside the booth. The flap of it dropped and they were hidden. The light was cast from a dim, green globe hung at the apex of the little tent. It made a ghostly glow over all inside.

"Advance!" whispered the witch, with lips close to Trix Severn's pretty ear. "Advance, neophyte! The gold piece is yours for the taking. But only she who has no guilt and treachery upon her heart may seize the shining coin. _If you are faithful to your friends, take the coin!_"

Trix started and her pretty face was cast in an angry look as she glanced aside at the masquerader. But she made no reply save by her out-thrust hand which dived into the water.

Instantly the crowd outside heard a piercing scream from Trix Severn.

She burst out of the tent, and, amid the laughter and jeers of her comrades, sought shelter in another room.

"Did you get the gold piece, Trix?" cried some.

"Divide with a fellow, will you?"

"Say! there are more tricks than are dreamed of in your philosophy, eh, Trix?" gibed Eva Larry.

And for that atrocious pun she was pushed forward to the tent, to be the next victim on the altar of the boys' perfectly harmless, though surprising joke.

n.o.body was able to pick the gold piece out of the pan of water, thanks to the electric battery that Joe Eldred had so skillfully connected with it.

CHAPTER XVII

THE MYSTERIOUS LETTER

"You scared her," declared Agnes to Neale, on the way home from the party.

"Scared who?" demanded the boy, with apparent innocence.

"Trix."

"What if I did? I scared a lot of them."

"But you scared her worse than all the rest," Agnes said. "She was crying in the bedroom upstairs. Lucy told me."

"Crying because she couldn't get that five-dollar gold piece," chuckled Neale. "I wish I could believe they were tears of repentance."

"Who made you a judge, Neale O'Neil?" asked Ruth, with asperity.

"I'm not. Never was in politics," grinned the boy.

"Smartie!" said Agnes.

"Trix was judged by her own conscience," Neale added soberly. "I never said a word to her about that letter."

"What letter do you mean?" demanded Ruth.

But Neale shut his lips on that. When Ruth was not by, however, he admitted to Agnes that he had borrowed from Mr. Marks the letter that gentleman had received in reference to the strawberry raid. Neale was going to show it to Mr. Bob Buckham.

"I told Mr. Marks there was some funny business about it. I knew Mr.

Buckham never intended to report you girls to the princ.i.p.al. He didn't even know your names. Mr. Marks told me to find out about it and report to him. He knows that I once worked for Bob Buckham and that he's a friend of mine."

"Oh, Neale!" groaned Agnes. "That won't help me."

"Help you to what?"

"To get a chance to act in the play," sighed the girl. "I did take the berries! So did the other girls. We deserve our punishment. Mr. Marks won't change his mind."

But Neale was not altogether sure of that. There were things happening just then which pointed to several changes in the character parts of _The Carnation Countess_. It was being discovered by the director and stage manager that many of the characters should be recast. Some of the girls and boys to whom the parts had been allotted could not possibly compa.s.s them.

This was particularly plain in the case of Innocent Delight and some others of the female roles. Some of the very brightest girls in the high school were debarred from taking part in the play because of Mr. Marks'

ruling against the first basket ball team and some of their friends.

Neale O'Neil determined to see Mr. Bob Buckham as soon as possible.

Another rehearsal would occur on this Sat.u.r.day afternoon; so Friday evening it was arranged that the interests of the Corner House girls should be divided for one Sat.u.r.day, at least.

Tess and Dot were going to the hospital in the forenoon. Uncle Rufus had coaxed many fall flowers into late blooming this year and the little girls were to carry great bunches of asters and garden-grown chrysanthemums to decorate the children's ward for Thanksgiving, which came the very next Thursday.

Ruth had shopping to do and must confer with Mr. Howbridge about a Thanksgiving treat for the Meadow Street tenants. "A turkey for each family--and perhaps vegetables," she declared. "So many of them are foreigners. They have learned to celebrate our Fourth of July--why not our Thanksgiving?"

Therefore, it was easy for Neale and Agnes to obtain permission to drive out to Strawberry Farm. Neale got a horse and runabout from the stableman for whom he occasionally drove, and Agnes was proud, indeed, when she came out in her furs and pretty new hat, with the fur-topped boots she had just purchased, and stepped into the carriage beside her friend.

Tom Jonah looked longingly after them from the yard, but Agnes shook her head. "Not to-day, old fellow," she told the good old dog. "We're going to travel too fast for you," for the quick-stepping horse was anxious to be on the road.

They departed amid the cheers of the whole family--and Sammy Pinkney, who threw a big cabbage-stalk after them for good luck and yelled his derisive compliments.

"Fresh kid!" muttered Neale.

"I'd like to spank that boy," sighed Agnes. "There never was so bad a boy since the world began, I believe!"

"I expect that's what the neighbors said about little Cain and Abel,"

chuckled Neale, recovering his good-nature at once.