"Then why did they sell out?" demanded Vera. "Every body knows they lost everything." "We haven't actually bought the place," Nancy explained, "just have an option on it. You see, we had to go to the country every summer, and mother thought this might suit us. It is so convenient for her to commute, and Ted and I can't get into a lot of mischief in a place like this. So it seems, at least," she hastened to add. "Well, if you let your brother go around with that queer old fellow we saw him with today, he may get into mischief," intimated Vera, mysteriously, with a wag of her bobbed head. "Mr. Sanders? What's the matter with Mr. Sanders?" demanded Nancy, rather sharply. "Oh talk, talk, and gossip," Ruth interposed. "Just because he sees fit to keep his business to himself--" "You know perfectly well, Ruth, that is more than gossip," insisted Vera. "What is? What's the mystery?" again demanded Nancy, dropping her box of lead pencils rather suddenly. "Well," drawled Vera, getting up with a tantalizing deliberateness, "if you were to see a person in front of you one minute and have him vanish the next--" A peal of laughter from Nancy broke in rudely upon Vera's recitation. "All right," Vera added, in a hurt tone. "Don't believe me if you don't want to, but just wait and see." "Disappearing Dick?" chanted Nancy gaily. "Do you mean to say he's one of those so-called miracle men?" "Oh, no, nothing of the sort," protested Ruth. "But there is something--different about him. A lot of people say he does disappear, but of course, there's nothing uncanny about it. It's probably just clever," Ruth tried to explain. "Rather," drawled Vera. And Nancy could not suppress an impolite but insistent chuckle. CHAPTER V ORIGINAL PLANS During the next half hour the girls busied themselves playing store. Ruth was almost as keenly interested in the little place as was Nancy, herself, but it was noticeable that Vera was more curious. She poked into the farthest corners, even opening obscure little cubby-holes that Nancy had not yet discovered. All the while they talked about the Townsends and the mysterious Mr. Sanders, declaring that something around the Whatnot Shop held the clue to the Townsend disagreement, and Mr. Sanders' mysterious power of disappearing. "I think it's the funniest thing," ruminated Nancy, clapping the wrong cover on the white thread box, "here we came away out here to be peaceful, quiet and studious. Mother looked for a place just to keep Ted and me busy, and then we run into a regular hornet's nest of rumors." "Don't you know," replied Ruth, "that still waters run deepest?"