“Arrest Philip? Why, the idea of such a thing! No, of course not,” Nathalie answered determinedly, as if she was not going to allow herself to become frightened. “Philip has committed no crime. That man can’t arrest him unless he has some evidence, and where is he going to get it?” Nita made no reply, and the two girls, depressed by the unpleasant occurrence, and the vague fear that trouble was brewing for their friend, sat down in one of the summer-houses near the board-walk. Here they sat in silence for a few moments, and then Nathalie, as if determined to throw off the depression that assailed her, cried, “Oh, Nita, I have not told you the funny thing.” “Well, tell it to me, then; for I think it will take something real comical to get me out of the blues.” “It is about Tony,” explained Nathalie. “You know the child is obsessed with the desire to have me find the mystery thing. Well, the other day Danny came running to tell me that Tony was rolling on the floor with the colic. I was alarmed, for I immediately thought he had been eating green apples, the way Sheila did the other day, and mother had to poultice her with mustard. “I flew to his room and there was the little fellow moaning and squirming about, apparently in great pain. When he saw me he immediately begged me to put a mustard plaster on his stomach. I was surprised, for generally children will suffer quite a little before they will have one on. I found some old linen,—mother was out,—hurried down to the kitchen closet, and got the mustard-box. “But when I opened it, imbedded in the yellow, powdery stuff, was something that glittered strangely. I shook the box, and out rolled a little gold coin. I carefully examined it, and immediately saw that it was an ancient Roman coin, for although one side was so blurred and worn with age that I could not decipher anything on it, the other side bore the name and head of Cæsar within a circle of fine gold beading. “Something immediately told me that the coin belonged to Tony, and that he had placed it there so I would find it, for, not long ago he lost something from his vest-pocket,—he keeps all of his treasures sewed up in that old vest. Danny had helped him look for it,—it had slipped out of a hole,—and after it had been found he came and told me about it, describing it as a little round piece of gold, the kind that you see, he said, up in the museum at Central Park. “I made the plaster and carried it, with the coin, up to Tony, but before I put on the poultice I showed him the gold piece and asked if it was not his. But the little chap, with a bland and innocent expression, vowed that he had never seen it. No amount of coaxing or persuasion could make him confess to the truth. You know that is the great trouble I have with Tony, he will tell _teeny little stories_.” Nathalie sighed dolefully.