A very stout boy, sitting across the table, sn.i.g.g.e.red, and then, encountering Ned's inquiring regard, said, "Guess you think you're in the Waldorf!"

"What's the Waldorf?" asked Ned. "Don't you get lemon with iced tea here?"

"Sure! but you don't get much. Say, are you fellows-twins, or what?"

"Twins?" repeated Laurie. "Where do you get that stuff? This fellow's name is Anderson and mine's Stenman. What's yours?"

"Crow. Honest, is that a fact?" Crow looked appealingly at the other occupants of the table. These, however, two rather embarra.s.sed-looking youngsters of fourteen or thereabouts, fixed their eyes on their plates, and Crow turned his regard incredulously back to the twins. "Gee, you fellows look enough alike to be-be-" He swallowed the word. "Aren't you even related?"

Ned gazed speculatively at Laurie and Laurie gazed speculatively at Ned.

"We might be," hazarded the latter.

Laurie nodded. "If we went back far enough, we might find a common ancestor."

The arrival of luncheon caused a diversion, although Crow, who was a round-faced, credulous-looking youth of perhaps seventeen, continued to regard them surrept.i.tiously and in puzzlement. At last, making the pa.s.sing of the salt an excuse, for further conversation, he asked, "Where do you fellows come from?"

"California," said Ned.

"Santa Lucia," said Laurie.

"Well, but," sputtered Crow, "isn't California in Santa-I mean, isn't Santa-Say, you guys are joking, I'll bet!"

"Methinks," observed Ned, helping himself gravely to mustard, "his words sound coa.r.s.e and vulgar."

Laurie abstractedly added a fourth teaspoon of sugar to his iced tea.

"Like Turk or Kurd or even Bulgar," he murmured.

Crow stared, grunted, and pushed his chair back. "You fellows think you're smart, don't you?" he sputtered. "Bet you you are twins-both of you!"

Ned and Laurie looked after him in mild and patient surprise until his broad back had disappeared from view. Then a choking sound came from one of the younger lads, and Ned asked gently, "Now what's your trouble, son?"

The boy grew very red of face and gave way to giggles. "I knew all the time you were twins," he gasped.

"Did you really?" exclaimed Laurie. "Well, listen. Just as a favor to us, don't say anything about it, eh? You see, we're sort of-sort of-"

"Sort of sensitive," aided Ned. "We'd rather it wasn't generally known.

You understand, don't you?"

The boy looked as if he was very far indeed from understanding, but he nodded, choked again, and muttered something that seemed to indicate that the secret was safe with him. Laurie thanked him gratefully.

After luncheon they went sight-seeing about the school, snooped through the dim corridors and empty cla.s.s-rooms of School Hall, viewed the gymnasium and experimented with numerous apparatus, and finally, after browsing through a flower and vegetable garden behind the recitation building and watching two boys make a pretense of playing tennis, returned to Number 16 in the hope of finding their trunks. But the baggage had not arrived, and presently, since the room was none too cool, they descended again and followed the curving drive to the right and past a sign that said "Exit Only" and wandered west on Summit Street.

For the middle of September in the lat.i.tude of southern New York the weather was decidedly warm, and neither gra.s.s nor trees hinted that autumn had arrived. In the well-kept gardens across the way, scarlet sage and cosmos, asters and dahlias made riots of color.

"Hot!" grunted Ned, running a finger around the inside of his collar.

"Beastly," agreed Laurie, removing his cap and fanning his heated face.

"Wonder where the river is. If we had our bathing-suits, maybe we could go for a swim."

"Yes, and if we had a cake of ice we could sit on it!" responded Ned, sarcastically. "This place is hotter than Santa Lucia."

At the next corner they turned again to the right. Morton Street, like so many of the streets in Orstead, refused to go straight, and after a few minutes, to their mild bewilderment, they found themselves on Walnut Street once more, a block below the school.

"I'm not going back yet," said Laurie, firmly. "Let's find a place where we can get something cool to drink."

As Walnut Street was unpromising, they crossed it and meandered along Garden Street. The houses here appeared to be less prosperous, and the front yards were less likely to hold lawn and flowers than dilapidated baby-carriages. At the first crossing they peered right and left, and were rewarded by the sight of a swinging sign at a little distance.

What the sign said was as yet a mystery, for the trees intervened, but Laurie declared that he believed in signs and they made their way toward it. It finally proved to be a very cheerful little sign hung above a little white door in a little pale-blue two-story house, the lower floor of which was plainly devoted to commercial purposes.

L. S. DEANE BOOKS, TOYS, AND CONFECTIONERY CIRCULATING LIBRARY LAUNDRY AGENCY TONICS

That is what the sign said in red letters on a white background. The windows, many paned, allowed uncertain glimpses of various articles: tops of red and blue and green, boxes of pencils, pads of paper, jars of candy, many bottles of ink, a catcher's glove, a dozen tennis-b.a.l.l.s, some paper kites-

Laurie dragged Ned inside, through a screen door that, on opening, caused a bell to tinkle somewhere in the farther recesses of the little building. It was dark inside, after the glare of the street, and refreshingly cool. Laurie, leading the way, collided with a bench, caromed off the end of a counter, and became aware of a figure, dimly seen, beyond the width of a show-case.

"Have you anything cold to drink?" asked Ned, leaning across the show-case.

"Ginger-ale or tonic or something?" Laurie elaborated.

"Yes, indeed," replied the apparition, in a strangely familiar voice.

"If you will step over to the other side, please-"

Ned and Laurie leaned farther across the show-case.

It was the girl in the white middy dress.

CHAPTER III-CAKES AND ALE

"h.e.l.lo!" exclaimed the twins, in one voice.

"h.e.l.lo," replied the girl, and they suspected that she was smiling, although their eyes were still too unused to the dimness of the little store for them to be certain. She was still only a vague figure in white, with a deeper blur where her face should have been. Treading on each other's heels, Ned and Laurie followed her to the other side. The twilight brightened and objects became more distinct. They were in front of a sort of trough-like box in which, half afloat in a pool of ice-water, were bottles of tonic and soda and ginger-ale. Behind it was a counter on which reposed a modest array of pastry.

"What do you want?" asked the girl in the middy.

"Ginger-ale," answered Ned. "Say, do you live here?"

"No, this is the shop," was the reply. "I live upstairs."

"Oh, well, you know what I mean," muttered Ned. "Is this your store?"

"It's my mother's. I help in it afternoons. My mother is Mrs. Deane. The boys call her the Widow. I'm Polly Deane."

"Pleased to know you," said Laurie. "Our name's Turner. I'm Laurie and he's Ned. Let me open that for you."