herwise, ever come back to such fiends as these?"

"Hush!" she cautioned, without so much as a glance in my direction.
"You'll wake Diogenes!"

Wake Diogenes! Ye Gods! And she had also implored the brothers of
Diogenes to continue their anvil chorus! This took the last stitch of
starch from my manly bosom. Spiritless and spineless I bore all
things, believed all things--but hoped for nothing.

CHAPTER V

_In Which We Take a Vacation_

Diogenes finally convalesced to his former state of ruggedness and
obstreperousness. He continued, however, to cling to Silvia and to
call her "mudder." To my amusement the other children followed suit
and she was now "muddered" by all the Polydores.

"I am glad," I remarked, "that they scorn to include me in their
adoption. I wouldn't fancy being 'faddered' by the Polydores."

"You won't be," Ptolemy, appearing seemingly from nowhere, assured me.
"We've named you stepdaddy."

"If it be possible, Silvia," I implored, "let this cup pass from me."

"I am going down to the intelligence office today," replied Silvia
soothingly. "Diogenes is well enough to go home now, and I can run
over there every evening and see that he is properly put to bed."

I went down town feeling like a mule relieved of his pack.

When I came home that afternoon, I found Silvia sitting on the shaded
porch serenely sewing. A Sabbath-like stillness pervaded. Not a
Polydore in sight or sound.

"Oh!" I cried buoyantly. "The Polydores have been returned to their
home station!"

"No," she replied calmly. "They told me at the intelligence office
that it would be absolutely impossible to persuade, bribe, or hire a
servant to assume the charge of the Polydore place."

"I suppose," I said glumly, "that Gladys gave the job a double cross.
But will you please account for the phenomenon of the utter absence of
Polydores at the present period? Has Huldah at last carried out her
oft-repeated threat of exterminating the Polydore race?"

"Pythagoras," explained Silvia dejectedly, "has gone to the doctor's.
He broke his wrist this morning. Diogenes is lost and Emerald has gone
to look for him--"

"Oh, why hunt him up?" I remonstrated. "Maybe Emerald, too, will get
lost or strayed or stolen."

"Huldah," continued Silvia, "has locked Demetrius in the cellar. I am
unable to report on Ptolemy. Huldah is half sick, but she won't go to
bed. She said no beds in Bedlamite for her. But I have a wonderful
plan to su