e trying on hats all by herself because the
saleswomen were busy with other people. She had put on a mink hat and
was roaming around looking for a handglass to see how it looked from the
back, when she suddenly got an idea for a story she was to write for
that month's club meeting. She forgot all about having the hat on her
head and started for home as fast as she could. Out on the sidewalk she
met Nyoda, who admired the hat. Then she came to."

"Mercy!" said Aunt Clara to Katherine, "weren't you frightened when you
discovered it?"

"Not she," said Gladys. "She walked right back inside, big as life,
hunted around until she found her own hat, and handed the mink one to
the saleswoman, who had just sent a store detective out after her. The
detective escorted her to the door that time, but it didn't worry her in
the least. She went right back into the store the next day and tried the
same hat on again and couldn't imagine why the saleswoman left another
customer and was so attentive to her. The simplicity of some people is
perfectly touching."

"I won't stay and be made fun of," said Katherine, and marched up the
hill with an injured air, calling back over her shoulder, "all people
who ordered fudge today might as well cancel their orders, because I'm
not going to make any, so there!"

"Oh, I say, don't get mad," said Slim in alarm, whereat everybody
laughed. He was the one for whom Katherine's words were intended, nobody
else having "ordered" any fudge.

"Honest, I forgot I promised not to tell about the binnacles," said Slim
pleadingly.

But Katherine was adamant and would not forgive him. Slim grunted
ruefully and exclaimed: "Shucks! I always manage to get in bad with her.
Always in bad," he repeated dolefully.

"We'll have to re-christen you 'In-Bad the Sailor!'" said Sahwah.

"Really!" said the Captain, making a grimace of comical surprise at her.
"Who would have thought the child was so deucedly clevah, bah Jove!"

But the name of In-Bad the Sailor struck the others as being such a good
one that they adopted it right away, and Slim had to answer to it half
the time for the rest of the summer.

Slim shadowed Katherine so closely and volunteered so gallantly to do
all her dinner chores that she relented in the middle of the afternoon
and brought out the brown and white "makin's" that Slim's sweet tooth so
delighted in. The Captain looked at them and jeered as he went past on
his way down to the landing.