"Ha, ha, ha!" roared the big man swinging toward the shore where Jack and Billy were to land. "That's a great story, isn't it? But I'll tell you," he lowered his voice in a tone of confidence, "I am altogether to blame for that fantastic yarn, but sometimes we have to let folks guess even if they do make--spooks out of us." He laughed again and even the little boys were now being tempted to join in. "But I want to promise you and your brother this, Nancy," he said seriously. "You shall be among the first to know the answer to the riddle of my magic disappearance around the gray stone house." "Thank you," Nancy managed to say, as Ted caught a strong little branch on shore, and helped land the canoe. CHAPTER XVIII INTRODUCING NERO It did not seem possible that Manny's school had been successfully opened two weeks ago! That the girls in her class, at first numbering eight now counted fourteen, each paying five dollars for the month's training in domestic science, with lessons three mornings a week. Fourteen pupils at five dollars each and every single one paid in advance, while Nancy was acting as class president and Ruth as class secretary; these were, indeed, auspicious arrangements. And besides the seventy dollars paid Miss Manners for tuition, the class members brought their own supplies and were privileged to take them home with them, in the form of various tempting dishes, "the like of which" as Nancy expressed it, "never had been seen in Long Leigh before nor since." "Maybe you don't know you're a wonder," Ruth remarked very casually to Nancy, while she, as secretary, was consulting with Nancy as president. "I can cook better _now_ than I ever expected to in my whole life. And as for Isabel! She's so enthusiastic, her mother says she has to restrain her from going into the boarding house business. You should just taste Belle's 'Cherry Moss.' Um-m-m! It was de-lic-ious!" and Ruth smacked her lips to the echo. "Her brother Tom wanted to know why we didn't make up a class for boys. He was in the army, you know, and so thinks himself very efficiently trained." "Isn't it great?" Nancy remarked, referring, of course, to the success of the class. "And for a laggard, an idler and one who positively hated the very letters that spelled cooking, I think I'm doing pretty well myself. I made a fudge cake yesterday and mother carried it out to set before the library ladies, can you imagine that? A cake that _I_ made! After my heartbreaking experience with the ungreased pans!" It was very early in the afternoon and Ruth, with Nancy, was putting the class room in order. She had remained over to lunch as she often did, and the two chums found pleasure in arranging the white covered tables, the shining pans, the numbered spoons and other utensils. It was all so much pleasanter than doing anything in an ordinary kitchen.