omebody
have the goodness to explain this sudden and extraordinary scene?"

"I--I don't understand!" Nattie murmured faintly, and looking
half-frightened, and half-beseechingly at Mr. Stanwood, who in response
smiled and said, with a firmer clasp of the hand he still held,

"I will explain in a very few moments how it is possible that I am the
real 'C'!"

"What!" screamed Cyn.

"What!" shouted Jo.

"What!!" absolutely yelled Quimby.

"There has been a mistake!" Mr. Stanwood said, now looking at Cyn.

"A mistake!" she repeated excitedly, "what _do_ you mean? YOU 'C,' our
'C,' of the wire? Nonsense! You are joking!"

"Yes, he is joking!" Quimby reiterated, but his teeth chattered as he
spoke. "He is a dreadful fellow to joke, Clem is!"

"Clem!" cried Cyn and Nattie, in the same breath.

"Do you begin to believe me?" said the gentleman who had caused all this
disturbance, and looking at Nattic, who now, becoming conscious that her
hand was yet in his, withdrew it hastily, with a deep blush.

"I don't know what to think!" cried Cyn.

"Do explain something, quick, or I shall burst a blood-vessel with
impatience; I know I shall!" exclaimed Jo.

Mr. Stanwood complied, by saying,

"The fact of the case is simply this. That red-haired young man, so
graphically described by you girls, that 'odious creature,' was the
operator I went to substitute for that day!"

"Oh!" said Nattie, a light beginning to break upon her.

"But how--" commenced Cyn.

"I will tell you how, if you will be patient," Mr. Stanwood interrupted,
smiling. "His office, as you," looking at Nattie, "remember, had once
been on our wire. He had heard 'N' and I talking, and in fact had often
annoyed us by breaking. So, as he was at the city, he took the
opportunity to pass himself off for me; perhaps for the sake of a joke,
perhaps from more malicious motives. I recognized his description at
once, from your story to-day, and I remember, too, his telling me on his
return, that he knew the best joke of the season; a remark I did not
notice, never supposing it concerned me."

"Yes!" said Nattie, eagerly, "and he was very particular to ask me not
to mention his call, on the wire."

"I do not suppose he imagined but we would eventually discover the
fraud, however; and so we should, had not you," looking rather
reproachfully at Nattie, "in your haste to drop so undesirable an
acquaintance, avoided the least hint of the true cause. How the dickens