"It is too bad." Lucy agreed wholeheartedly. "Isn't there a cure for them? Some kind of cold cream or something? Listen; what about that stuff of Mrs. Brace-Gideon's: that Princess Something-or-other's Elixir of whatcha-macallit that was supposed to give you a 'pearly complexion'? Has your mother thrown it away?" "Why no, I don't think so, yet. But she will any minute because Mr. Horton's about ready to paint the bathroom, finally. Why, that's a good idea, Lucy, and if the stuff is all dried up, we'll just add water to it. Maybe after all these years it will be stronger, too...." At this moment the door of Portia's room burst open, and small boys came flooding in, wearing Indian war bonnets and whooping like yahoos. "I'm Big Chief Fang!" Foster shouted happily. "We've come to scalp you! We've come to _tomahawk_ you and _scalp_ you!" "No, you have not! You get right out of my room!" commanded Portia, giving him a whack with the _Gypsy-Witch Fortune Teller_. She and Lucy, being older, larger, and more impressive, were able to sweep them out of the room and close the door. "They won't stay out, though," Portia said, as she and Lucy leaned against the door and heard the scuffles and giggles going on outside. "We'll just have to make a break for the bathroom. It has a real lock on it, thank goodness." They held the door fast a moment longer, then released it suddenly, leaping away as it flew open and the little tribe of aborigines came spilling in, in a tangle. The girls sprinted down the hall, laughing and lively now, leaped into the bathroom, and closed and locked the door, just in time. "Heck, no fair," objected Big Chief Fang in the hall. "You're not supposed to use locks. Come on out!" "Never!" sang Portia. "Never, never, never!" sang Lucy. "Oh, well, who cares! _Stay_ in there then; stay all year. All you'll have to eat is withered-up old pills," said Big Chief Fang. "Oig," said another Indian who sounded like Davey. "Come on, you guys; let's go and ask my mother for a cooky," invited the Chief, and away they all thundered, down the hall and down the stairs. "Peace at last," said Lucy. Then she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the basin. "Heavens, is my skin really that color? _Green?_" "Oh, no, it makes everybody look like that. But that's not where she kept her medicines. They're over here in this wall thing." Portia tugged at the handle of the little cabinet door. "You should have seen Jule searching for Mrs. Brace-Gideon's safe in here. In a _bath_room, im_a_gine! _Honest_ly!" "Honestly," echoed Lucy. "Now, what's the matter with _this_ door? The rainstorm's made everything stick all over again." She gave the handle a mighty yank, and to her infinite amazement the whole cabinet swung forward; swung outward toward her from the wall like a heavy little door, which is exactly what it was. And there behind it was the safe. 15 _The Safe_