Priscilla wrinkled up her brows. "I don't know; I never heard of him.
What do you suppose it can be?"
"An adventure--I know it's an adventure. Probably your uncle, that you
never heard of, has just died in the South Sea Islands, and left you a
fortune because you're his namesake; or else you're a countess by
rights, and were stolen from your cradle in infancy, and he's the lawyer
come to tell you about it. I think it might have happened to me, when
I'm so bored to death! But hurry up and tell me about it, at least; a
second-hand adventure's better than no adventure at all. Yes, your hair
is all right; never mind looking in the glass." And Patty pushed her
room-mate out of the door, and, sitting down at her desk again, quite
cheerfully pulled her discarded paper out of the waste-basket and began
re-reading it with evident approval.
Priscilla returned before she had finished. "He didn't ask for me at
all," she announced. "He asked for Miss McKay."
"Miss McKay?"
"That junior with the hair," she explained a trifle vaguely.
"How disgusting!" cried Patty. "I had it all planned how I was going to
live with you in your castle up in the Hartz Mountains, and now it turns
out that Miss McKay is the countess, and I don't even know her. What did
the man look like, and what did he do?"
"Well, he looked rather frightened, and didn't do anything but stammer.
There were two men in the reception-room, and of course I picked out the
wrong one and begged his pardon and asked if he were Mr. Stanthrope. He
said no; his name was Wiggins. So then the only thing left for me to do
was to beg the other one's pardon.
"He was sitting in that high-backed green chair, with his eyes glued to
his shoes, and holding his hat and cane in front of him like
breastworks, as if he were preparing to repel an attack. He didn't look
very approachable, but I boldly accosted him and asked if he were Mr.
Stanthrope. He stood up and stammered and blushed and looked as if he
wanted to deny it, but finally acknowledged that he was, and then stood
politely waiting for me to state my business! I explained, and he
stammered some more, and finally got out that he had called to see Miss
McKay, and that the maid must have made a mistake. He was quite cross
about it, you know, and acted as if I had insulted him; and the other
man--the horrible Wiggins one--laughed, and then looked out of the
window and pretended he hadn't. I apologized,--though I couldn't for the
life of me see what there was to apologize for,--and told him I would
send the maid for Miss McKay, and backed out."
"Is that all?" Patty asked disappointedly. "If I couldn't have a better
adventure than that, I shouldn't have any."
"But the funny thing is that when I told Sadie, she _insisted_ that he
had asked for me."
"Ha! The plot thickens, after all. What does it mean? Did he look like a
detective, or merely a pickpocket?"
"He looked like a very ordinarily embarrassed young man."
Patty shook her head dejectedly. "There's a mystery somewhere, but I
don't see that it affords much entertainment. I dare say that when Miss
McKay came he told her he hadn't asked for her at all; he had asked for
Miss Higginbotham. The only explanation I can think of is that he is
insane, and there are so many insane people in the world that it isn't
even interesting."
Patty recounted the story of Priscilla's caller at the dinner-table that
night.
"I know the sequel," said Lucille Carter. "The other man, the Mr.
Wiggins, is Bonnie Connaught's cousin; and he told her about some young
man who came out in the car with him, and asked for Miss Pond at the
door, and then all of a sudden seemed to change his mind, and went
tearing down the corridor after the maid, yelling, 'Hi, there! Hi,
there!' at the top of his voice; but he couldn't catch her, and when
Miss Pond came he pretended he had asked for some one else."
"Is that all?" asked Patty. "I don't think it is much of a sequel. It
just proves that there's a plot against Priscilla's life, and I already
knew that. I intend to ask Miss McKay about him. I don't know her,
except by sight, but in a case of life and death like this, I don't
think it's necessary to wait for an introduction."
The next evening Patty announced: "Sequel number two! Mr. Frederick K.
Stanthrope lives in New York, and is Miss McKay's brother's best friend.
She has only met him once before, and doesn't know any of his past
affiliations. But the queer thing is that he never mentioned to her
anything about Priscilla. Shouldn't you naturally think he would have
told her about such a funny mistake?
"In my opinion," Patty continued solemnly, "it was plainly premeditated.
He is undoubtedly a villain in disguise, and he used his acquaintance
with Miss McKay as a cloak to elude detection. My theory is this: He got
Priscilla's name out of the catalogue, and came here intending to murder
her for her _jools_; but when he saw how big she was he was scared and
so abandoned his dastardly intent. Now if he had chosen me, my body
would, at this moment, have been concealed behind the sofa, and my
class-pin reposing in the murderer's pocket."
Patty shuddered. "Think what I escaped. And all the time I was grumbling
because nothing ever happens here!"
A few days later she appeared at the table with a further announcement:
"I have the pleasure of offering for your perusal, young ladies, the
third and last sequel in the great Stanthrope-Pond-McKay mystery. And I
hereby take the opportunity of apologizing to Mr. Stanthrope for my
unworthy suspicions. He is not a burglar, nor a detective, nor a
murderer, nor even a lawyer, but just a poor young man with a buried
romance."
"How did you find out?"--in a chorus of voices.
"I just met Miss McKay in the hall, and she has been in New York, where
her brother told her the particulars. It seems that three or four years
ago Mr. Frederick K. Stanthrope was engaged to a girl here in college
named Alice Pond--she is now Mrs. Hiram Brown, but that has nothing to
do with the story.
"Being in town last Saturday on business, he decided to run out and call
on Miss McKay, as he was such a friend of her brother's--and also for
the sake of old times. He amused himself all the way out in the car by
resurrecting his buried romance, and he kept getting more and more
pensive with every mile. When he finally reached the door and handed his
card to the maid, he abstractedly called for Miss Pond just as he used
to do four years ago. He didn't realize at first what he had done. Then
it came over him in a flash, but he couldn't catch Sadie. He knew, of
course, that the other man had heard, and he sat there scared to death,
trying to think of some plausible excuse, and momentarily expecting a
strange Miss Pond to pop in and demand an explanation.
"Sure enough, the curtains parted, and a tall, beautiful, stately
creature (I quote Miss McKay's brother) swept into the room, and,
approaching the wrong man, asked him in haughty tones if he were Mr.
Frederick K. Stanthrope. He very properly denied it, whereupon there was
nothing for the right Mr. Stanthrope to do but stand up and acknowledge
it like a man, which he did; but there he stuck. His imagination was
numbed, paralyzed; so he turned it off on poor Sadie, and all the time
he knew that the other man knew that he was lying. And that is all,"
Patty finished. "It's not much of a story, but such as it is, it's a
blessing to have it concluded."
"Patty," called Priscilla, from the other end of the table, "have you
been telling them that absurd story?"
"Why not?" asked Patty. "Having heard so many sequels, they naturally
wanted to hear the last."
Priscilla laughed. "But yours doesn't happen to be the last. I know a
still later one."
"Later than Patty's?" the table demanded.
"Yes, later than Patty's. It isn't really a sequel; it's just an
appendix. I shouldn't tell you, only you'll find it out, so I might as
well. Miss McKay has invited two men for the junior party, and both have
accepted. As two men are hard to manage, she has (by request) asked me
to take care of one of them--namely, Mr. Frederick K. Stanthrope."
Patty sighed. "I see a whole series of sequels stretching away into the
future. It's worse than the Elsie Books!"