ds
for funds. "These tiresome children are so extravagant," she wrote.
"And now Polly has been ill with a throat that looked as though it
might be diphtheria and I have had to have a doctor in. We have been in
Chicago for the last week and I think I may just stay here. We have
board in an excellent place, but of course it is expensive. Don't be
such a tight wad, Ches. You know I am looking after these brats
entirely on your account. If it wasn't for you I'd lose them fast
enough. What do you expect me to do next? Whatever you want me to do,
give me time to do it in." She ended with assurances of truest
affection.

"So," mused Josie, "lying to each other, too! Chester Hunt thinks the
kids are with Dink. He doesn't know how cheaply she has boarded them
either. Not even honor among thieves! The plot thickens! Wheels within
wheels! As father used to say:

"'Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When once we practice to deceive.'"

One thing that always amused Josie's friends was that she constantly
quoted old saws and attributed them to her beloved father. According to
Josie, Detective O'Gorman was the originator of half of "Poor Richard's
Almanac" and the "Wisdom of Solomon" and many terse sayings of
Shakespeare.

After Josie had copied the contents of the two important communications
she sealed them neatly and placed them with the rest of the mail on the
master's desk, carefully mixing the letters so that the two which had
been tampered with did not lie together. After that she redoubled her
efforts towards cleaning the kitchen. Into every crack and corner went
Josie's broom and scrubbing brush. She rescued the clothes from the
line in the back yard, and then ironed them and, folding them in a
highly professional manner, placed them on the foot of Chester Hunt's
bed,

"It is bad enough to have to spy on a man but at least I intend to earn
my twelve a week or whatever it was I told him I asked."

Her cleaning mania then led her to the dining room, where such another
upheaval occurred as seldom takes place in a mistressless home.

"Poor man! He has certainly lived in extreme discomfort." She found
herself pitying Chester Hunt, but just then in the raid she was making
on the shelves of the Sheraton sideboard she found two porridge bowls,
one decorated with chickens and one with rabbits, which brought Polly
and Peter back so vividly that her incipient pity was turned to rage.
After that she wielded her brush and broom wit