we gets a report of what happens when
Pinckney runs across this Sir Carpenter-Podmore at the club and lugs him
out to dinner. He's an English gent Pinckney had known abroad. Comin' in
unexpected that way, him and Madame Roulaire had met face to face in the
hall, while the introductions was bein' passed out--and what does she do
but turn putty colored and shake like she was havin' a fit!

"Ah, Truckles?" says Podmore, sort of cordial.

"No, no!" she gasps. "Roulaire! I am Madame Roulaire!"

"Beg pardon, I'm sure," says Sir Carpenter, liftin' his eyebrows and
passin' on.

That was all there was to it; but everyone in the house heard about it.
Course Aunt Martha jumps right in with the question marks; but all she
gets out of Podmore is that he presumes he was mistaken.

"Well, maybe he was," says I. "Why not?"

"Then you haven't heard," says Sadie, "that Sir Carpenter was for a long
time a Judge on the criminal bench."

"Z-z-z-zing!" says I. "Looks kind of squally for the governess, don't
it?"

If it hadn't been for Pinckney, too, Aunt Martha'd had her thrown out
that night; but he wouldn't have it that way.

"I've never been murdered in my bed, or been fed on ground glass," says
he, "and--who knows?--I might like the sensation."

Say, there's more sides to that Pinckney than there are to a cutglass
paperweight. You might think, with him such a Reggie chap, that havin' a
suspicious character like that around would get on his nerves; but, when
it comes to applyin' the real color test, there ain't any more yellow in
him than in a ball of bluin', and he can be as curious about certain
things as a kid investigatin' the animal cages.

Rather than tie the can to Madame Roulaire without gettin' a straight
line on her, he was willin' to run chances. And it don't make any
difference to him how much Aunt Martha croaks about this and that, and
suggests how dreadful it is to think of those dear, innocent little
children exposed to such evil influences. That last item appeals strong
to Mrs. Pinckney and Sadie, though.

"Of course," says Geraldine, "the twins don't suspect a thing as yet, and
whatever we discover must be kept from them."

"Certainly," says Sadie, "the poor little dears mustn't know."

So part of the programme was to keep them out of her way as much as
possible without actually callin' her to the bench, and that's what
fetched me out there early the other afternoon. It was my turn at
protectin' innocent