THRILLING NEWS
Did you read your note, Dinksy?" Judith asked Jane, using the
particular pet name adopted because of its very remote distance from
the original.
"You know I did, Pally." This was from Pal, of course.
"A bomb threat?"
"Not quite." Jane's hair was rebellious this morning and just now
received a real cuffing at its owner's hands.
"How perfectly peachy you would look bobbed, Dinksy. That color and
those smooth silky curls! How the angels must have loved you. Know
this line?
"'Methinks some cherub holds thee fair,
For kissing down thy sunny hair
I find his ringlets tangled there!'"
"You would," interrupted Jane sacrilegiously. "More than his
ringlets tangled here this morning," with a final jab of the
strongest variety of golden bone hair-pin. "Aunt Mary always said my
mood (she meant temper) affected my hair. And I am sure she was
always right about it."
"Well, you don't have to tell me about the note if you don't want
to, Janie," pouted Judith. "But my idea is, you need counsel and I
am as ever the expert."
"Fair Portia, thou shalt be my counsel ever. I had no thought of
hiding the little note," insisted Jane, "but it is horribly
disappointing. Wait until I rescue it from the basket. There's
always a charm about the original." "Don't bother, please, Jane,"
begged Judith. "We are almost late and I hope for a set of tennis
before class. I need it every day to keep off the heartbreak.
Darlink Sanzie," she sniffled. "To think he will nary again bat a
ball in my black eye."
"Why never again? There are other vacations."
"But no more Jacks like Sanzie. He is unique and has opened a law
office by now. Can't you see his stenographer kicking his shapely
shins as he dictates? They always do that in the movies, and Sanzie
is so up to date, even as to shins. Now, Janie dear, let's along. En
route you may tell me about the bomb threat. The corridors are
clear."
"She simply wants a chance to talk to me, that's all----"
"But she can't have it," declared Judith. "As your counsel I forbid
it. Just give that girl a chance and she will bind you over, body
and soul; refined blackmail, you know. Don't you dare answer that
note until I dictate the reply," Judith swung her arm around Jane's
waist in the most all-embracing manner. "Please, Dinksy," she almost
whispered, "wait until we are free this afternoon."
Thus they separated; Judith for her tennis and Jane for a turn on
Bowling Green.
But Jane had a deeper problem to solve than even her chum suspected.
There was the broken mirror in Dozia's room and the fact that Dozia
had actually hit Shirley on the head with a hammer!
"A pretty record that--and made on the first night in college," Jane
reflected.
Undoubtedly the freshman's demand that Jane "see her at once" had to
do with the outrage. And the interview would be granted, of course,
that very afternoon unless Judith interfered.
Incidentally Judith was turning the situation over in her own good-
natured mind.
"I would just like to see that gawk get Jane wound up in her
miseries," she told herself, while Janet Clarke hunted for stray
tennis balls in the hedge. "Jane is such a dear with sympathy that
this girl's very crimes would appeal to her--in compassion. No-sir-
ree!" She volleyed a vicious ball--"Jane will not see the impossible
Shirley alone just yet."
Meanwhile news of Dolorez Vincez's Beauty Shop had spread over the
college like a holiday notice. Dolorez was the South American girl
who had been expelled from Wellington the previous year because of
irregularities in many things but particularly in basket ball games.
As told in the book, "Jane Allen: Center," this young lady was
really a teacher of athletics, and had been posing as an amateur.
Being forced to leave college after opening a prohibited beauty shop
she vowed vengeance, and many of the students now felt the Beauty
Parlor, opened at the very gates of Wellington and widely
advertised, was about to assume the dangers of a golden spider web.
The girls were fairly quivering with excitement, when Dozia Dalton,
herald of the sensation, condescended to tell everybody all she knew
about the whole thing.
Velma Sigsbee would insist upon interrupting with silly questions,
such as the price of a bob or the possible pain of operating for
double dimples, but eventually Dozia told the story while Ted
Guthrie held Velma's hand in a compelling grip. It was over on the
long low bench by the ball field where practice should have been
kicking up a dust. But Dol's Beauty Parlor outrage was too
delectable to forego even for a final ball game,
"It's perfectly darling," confided the idolized Dozia (any girl with
that story on her person would be idolized although Dozia was
individually popular). "The place, I mean. It's fitted up----"
"Were--you in?" gasped Winifred Ayres.
"No, of course I was not in," disdained Dozia. "No one who ever knew
the trickery of Dolorez Vincez would enter that place."
"Why?" asked the innocent Nettie Brocton. "Would she really do
something dreadful----"
"She would, really," declared Jane, her tone not easy to interpret.
"She could turn your hair a bright red like mine by mere chemical
action of her ventilating system."
"Really!" implored the dimply girl.
"Pos-i-tive-ly!" declared Jane. "But don't attempt it dear. She
would send your dad an awful bill for doing a stunt like that. Think
of the price of hair like mine!"
That suggestion brought disaster to Jane, for Ted Guthrie swayed at
the very end of the bench and the whole line almost went over
backwards. It was in Ted's attempt to punish Jane for her vanity
that the sudden sweep, like a current in physics, jerked feet from
the ground and upset balance generally. Some seconds elapsed (and
each was precious) before things again settled down, including
Velma's crochet balls, Janet's book, pad, and pencil, Dozia's small
bottle of salted peanuts as well as other sundries and supplies.
"Please finish the yarn," implored Nettie Brocton. "Do tell us,
Dozia, how the place is fitted up."
"First tell us, please," insisted judicial Judith, "how do you know
how it is fitted up? Does our plumber plumb there?"
During all this nonsense Jane cast many a furtive glance along
Linger Lane, expecting the obnoxious Shirley to loom up large and
lanky by the way, but as yet she had not darkened the shadowy path.
If Jane could run off to the Rockery, that landmark between freshman
and later college campus lines, there to meet and have done with the
demands of her erstwhile tormentor. But no, Judith was openly
demanding Jane's concentration on the bench, and every point made by
Dozia in her tale of the beauty shop Judith flung at Jane in direct
challenge for stricter attention. She was not going to escape if
Judith Stearns knew it, and she surmised the intention.
It had finally been told to tingling ears that the poisoned beauty
shop, as Winifred Ayres, the writer, had already dubbed the place,
was done in wonderful mirrors, and shiny faucets, windy wizzing hair
fans and electric permanent wavers and curlers; and when the full
description had been given, more girls than one sighed, groaned and
grumbled.
"To think it has to be taboo," spoke Ted Guthrie. "Dol was always a
wizard, and now thus equipped she might have a lovely way of fanning
me thin."
"And fattening me nice and fluffy with the same fan," sighed
Winifred.
"My freckles might float away like powder from the butterfly's
wings," with a weird fluttering of Dozia's long arms.
"But hair!" exclaimed Judith. "Think of turning me into a golden
blonde with eyes like blue-bells under dewiness----"
"It cannot be! It cannot be!" moaned Dozia. "Instead we must raid
the place and banish the traitor. How about that for stunt night
with the sophs?"
"Wonderful!" sang out Juliette De Puy. She had listened and waited
with a certain reserve for which this capable Juliette was famous,
but now that the story was told she deigned to add that one word
"wonderful." Everyone looked at her suddenly.
"And have you tell the sophs," blurted out Nettie Brocton. "Dozia
Dalton you have spoiled it all. Didn't you see we had company?"
"Never noticed the lovely Juliette. Never mind Julie, you may tell
the crowd all you've heard," condescended the redoubtable Dozia. "We
enjoyed having you and it is perfectly all right."
"Thanks. Come over to our camp some night and I'll do as much for
you. I just came in this afternoon, you know, to sub on the ball
team."
"Instead of which you subbed on the gossip club," finished Jane,
jumping up. "I've got to go back to my room. Don't let me hurry
anyone," she said indifferently. Then, just as a strange figure
turned from the big boxwood bumper into the lane, Jane escaped.
She hurried to meet Shirley Duncan.