"I can imagine her now," said Bob: "she is probably bathing the brow of a
sleepless patient, and the lace ruffles and turquoise bugles are helping
along a lot. In fact, I think she's looking rather nice going around a
sick-room in that blue bombazine."
"It isn't bombazine, Bob," said his sister; "it's beautiful, lovely
light-blue chiffon."
"Well, beautiful, lovely light-blue chiffon, then; but anyway, I'm
sure the nurse is glad of a chance to wear it instead of her own
plain clothes."
"But her own plain clothes are not at all unpicturesque, and are very
becoming to Miss Allen," said Mr. Fairfield. "But haven't your trunks
come?" he added, as they all went out to dinner.
"No," said Bob; "Mr. Harper and I investigated the baggage-room, but
they weren't there."
"Oh, call him Kenneth," said Patty. "You boys are too young for such
formality."
"I may be," said Bob, "but he isn't. He's a college man."
"He's a college boy," said Patty; "he's only nineteen, and you're sixteen
yourself."
"Going on seventeen," said Bob proudly, "and so is Bumble."
"Twins often are the same age," observed Mr. Fairfield, "and after a few
years, Bob, you'll have to be careful how you announce your own age,
because it will reveal your sister's."
"Pooh! I don't care," said Bumble. "I'd just as lieve people would know
how old I am. Nan is twenty-two, and she doesn't care who knows it."
"You look about fifty in those ridiculous clothes," said Patty.
"Do I?" said Nan, quite unconcernedly. "I don't mind that a bit, but I
don't think I can keep them at this stage of whiteness for many days.
Can anything be done to coax our trunks this way?"
"We might do some telephoning after dinner," said Mr. Fairfield. "What is
the situation up to the present time?"
"Why, you see it was this way," said Bumble. "When the carriage came to
take us to the station, the trunks weren't quite ready, and mamma said
for us to go on and she'd finish packing them and send them down in time
to get that train or the next."
"And did they come for that train?"
"No, they didn't, and so, of course, they must have been sent on the next
one; but even so, they ought to be here now, because, you know, we went
on through and came back."
"But how did you get your checks if your trunks weren't put on the
train?"
"Oh, the baggageman knows us," explained Bob, "and he gave us our checks
and kept the duplicates to put on our trunks when they came down to the
station. He often does that."
"Yes," said Bumble, "we've never had our trunks ready yet when the man
came for them."
"Nan's was ready," put in Bob, who was a great stickler for justice,
"but, of course, hers couldn't go till ours did. Oh, I guess they'll turn
up all right."
They did turn up all right twenty-four hours later, but the exchange of
suit-cases was not so easily effected.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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