think you might be polite enough to
let Mrs. Clair speak to the doctor about her own husband."

"What's she going to say?" demanded Bep.

"How should I know?" asked Fom, airily; and then, hurrying on, while she
made Mrs. Clair bow low before the ready-made physician, "I am Mrs.
Clair, doctor, the rich Mrs. Guy St. Gerald Clair who has all the
money--"

"It's no such thing! It's no such thing!" shrieked Bep.

"Well, Miss Florence Madigan!" exclaimed Mrs. Clair by proxy, "if your
sister Bessie ain't the rudest!"

"I'll smash her if she says that again!" came in a bellow from Bep.

"You touch my doll!" Daringly Fom placed Mrs. Clair within tempting
distance of Bep's hand.

"Well--just you let her say it again!"

"I don't need to. She's told me, so now I know it."

"You may go down-stairs again, doctor. It's a mistake," said Bep,
addressing the medical man. (The twins always tried to keep up
appearances before their dolls.) "Mr. Clair--the awfully rich Mr. Guy
St. Gerald Clair--is not sick at all. But you can send your bill to him
anyway, he won't care. It must have been some poor relation of Mrs.
Clair's--she didn't have a dress to her name before she married, you
know."

"Oh--oh! Bessie Madigan!"

"Well, she didn't," said Bep, stoutly.

"I'll bet you--I'll bet you a shut-up. There!" Cautious Fom rarely
hazarded so great a stake; but she felt that the occasion demanded
something adequate.

"All right; I'll leave it to Sissy." It was from Sissy that Bep had
inherited Mr. Clair. She would know.

Laying down stiff all-china Anita Clair, whose shoes she was painting
red to match her sash, Bep followed her twin into the house.

But the omnivorous Sissy was reading "The Boys of England"--a thing
Sissy loved to do; for it was a magazine not permitted to enter Mrs.
Pemberton's immaculate house, a recommendation in itself, and, besides,
Split, to whom Jack Cody had loaned it, was doubtless looking all over
for it at this very moment. Lying luxuriously flat upon the floor and
eating chocolate, Sissy had just got to that part where Jack Harkaway
"with one flash of Abu Hadji's ruby-incrusted simitar decapitated the
unfortunate Arab, and Dick Lightheart, seizing the bewitching Haidee,
had mounted his horse"--when the belligerent twins found her.

"Now, let me say it," began Fom.

"No; you won't ask it fair.... Sissy, tell me, wasn't Mr.--"

"Tra--la--la--la!" sang Fom, shrilly, drowning Bep's voice.

"Say!" Si