"Fiddlesticks, phonographs don't have ghosts!" And listening more intently, she gradually located the familiar strains as coming from the distant carriage house. In a fever of expectancy Tootsie flew across the lawns and gained the open door. Above her the phonograph was pumping out the thrilling measures of the latest two-step, but what puzzled her immediately were the scuffling, shifting sounds, like a scurry of rats, which accompanied it. Then a suspicion of the truth came to her and she tiptoed up the stairs. On the open floor Skippy with his arms about a strange shape was painfully treading in and out of a maze which, with a bench, a barrel and two chairs, he had arranged to visualize the perils of the ballroom. "Thief!" Skippy started, shied into the bench and went over backwards while the partner of his arms, escaping, rolled over towards Tootsie, discovering under Clara's best organdie dress the net-work of wire which made up the missing dressmaker's form! CHAPTER XXVI CONTAINING SOME HIGH MELODRAMA THERE are great moments in life when the acquired veneer of society drops away and human beings revert to type. Tootsie lay down on her back and kicked her legs in the air, howling with glee. Skippy, disentangling himself from the bench, rose with slow deliberation. He saw that he faced a crisis. If Tootsie, now rolling before him in hysterical agony, ever was allowed to tell such a story as this, there would be no future for John C. Bedelle but to ship before the mast. Skippy thought hard and Skippy had the instincts of a diplomat. He decided to begin with a light conciliatory manner. "Well, Tootsie, old girl, you've got the goods on me. What's your price?" Tootsie's reply was a succession of hysterical gasps that sounded like a child with the whooping cough laughing over a comic section. "What's your price?" Skippy repeated more firmly, but striving to maintain a sickly smile. "OW! OW! OW!" said Tootsie, holding in her sides. Skippy began to be alarmed. He thought a moment and then carefully removed the dressmaker's form and hid it behind a packing-case. But the sight of Skippy's dancing companion brought forth a fresh attack of hysterics. Then he had recourse to water and a dripping oily sponge. The sight of this so affected Tootsie that she rose precipitately and staggered to a chair. Skippy at once abandoned the sponge and sympathetically proffered his handkerchief. "It's goin' to cost me a lot of money," he thought, considering her with anxiety. He had fifteen dollars stowed away with the intention of adding it to the cash returns of his approaching birthday and acquiring his first dress suit. He made a mental surrender and advancing to the somewhat calmer Tootsie, a third time asked: "Well, come on! What's your price?" "Thief!" said Tootsie, all at once remembering her grievance. "Oh, I say, can't you take a joke?" "A joke! Wait'll I get even with you, Mr. Smarty!" "Go easy. Name your terms."