"Remember, too," she added, as a parting shot, "that girls don't get into clubs here by blackmail. Even if Judy had put you up, you wouldn't have had the ghost of a chance." Nobody was more interested than Edith in wondering what the strange Adele would do now. "Will she defend herself or will she fly?" Edith asked herself. But Adele did the most surprising thing yet. She burst into tears. "You have no right to speak to me as you did," she wept into a scented and hand-embroidered handkerchief. "Haven't I?" said Molly, drawing her gently but firmly to the door. "Well, go to your room and think about it a while and see if you don't change your mind." And with that she quietly thrust Adele into the hall, closed the door and locked it. Then, such a burst of subdued laughter rose within No. 5 as was never heard before. Molly collapsed on the sofa while the girls gathered around her. Judy sat on the floor, her head resting on Molly's shoulder. "It was as good as a play," cried Edith. "I never saw anything finer. Molly, you're certainly full of surprises. But what did you mean by snakey-noodles? Wasn't it beautiful?" Then Molly explained to them about the snakey-noodle box. "Of course, the rest was just wild guessing, but from the way she took it I'm pretty sure I'm right." "It was better than jiu-jitsu," said Otoyo. "It was, I think, the jiu-jitsu of language." They all laughed at this quaint notion, and Molly relaxed on the couch like a very tired young warrior after the battle. "Judy, you're foolish to be afraid of that girl," said Margaret sternly. "I'm not exactly afraid of her," answered Judy, "but you see it would have gone particularly hard with me just now to have her go to Miss Walker with that story about the ghost. It was true that one evening, in a wicked humor, I planned the whole thing with her and that little Anne who is just as afraid of her as I suppose I am. I don't think Miss Walker would have given me another chance. Everything would have been against me, the rope ladder and all the things I had said." "But then you could have proved an alibi," said Nance. "You were up here the night the ghost chased Molly and me." "So I could," Judy exclaimed. "I was so scared I forgot all about that night. There's something about Adele that makes you lose your senses. She leans over you and looks at you and talks to you in a hot, rapid sort of way. I just saw myself, after all the trouble everybody had taken with me, being sent away in disgrace. I didn't believe I could prove anything when she began talking. I just went under." "Well, don't you ever do it again," put in Nance. "Say 'snakey-noodles' the next time she comes at you," said Edith. "Oh, dear, that exquisite name," she continued, leaning back in her chair so as to indulge in a fit of silent laughter.