"

"We won't even crack 'em, Aunt Kate," declared Helen rouguishly. "I will
watch Jen like a cat would a mouse."

"Humph!" observed the plump girl, scornfully. "_This_ mouse, in that case,
is likely to swallow the cat!"

CHAPTER XIII

THE HERMIT

"Now, tell me, Miss Ruth," said Mr. Hammond, having taken the girl of the
Red Mill into his own car for the short run to Beach Plum Point, "what is
this trouble about your new scenario? You have excited my curiosity during
all these months about the wonderful script, and now you say it is not
ready for me."

"Oh, Mr. Hammond!" exclaimed Ruth, "I fear it will never be ready for
you."

"Nonsense! Don't lose heart. You have merely come to one of those
thank-you-ma'ams in story writing that all authors suffer. Wait. It will
come to you."

"No, no!" sighed Ruth. "It is nothing like that. I had finished the
scenario. I had it all just about as I wanted it, and then----"

"Then what?" he asked in wonder at her emotion.

"It--it was stolen!"

"Stolen?"

"Yes. And all my notes--everything! I--I can't talk about it. And I never
could write it again," sobbed Ruth. "It is the best thing I ever did, Mr.
Hammond."

"If it is better than 'The Heart of a Schoolgirl', or 'The Forty-Niners',
or 'The Boys of the Draft', then it must be some scenario, Miss Ruth. The
last two are still going strong, you know. And I have hopes of the
'Seaside Idyl' catching the public fancy just when we are all getting
rather weary of war dramas.

"If you can only rewrite this new story----"

"But Mr. Hammond! I am sure it has been stolen by somebody who will make
use of it. Some other producer may put it on the screen, and then my
version would fall flat--if no worse."

"Humph! And you have been so secret about it!"

"I took your advice, Mr. Hammond. I have told nobody about it--not a
thing!"

"And somebody unknown stole it?"

"We think it was a vagrant actor. A tramp. Just the sort of person,
though, who would know how to make use of the script."

"Humph! All actors were considered 'vagrants' under the old English
law--in Shakespeare's younger days, for instance," remarked Mr. Hammond.

"You see how unwise it would be for me to try to rewrite the story--even
if I could--and try to screen it."

"I presume you are right. Yes. But I hoped you would bring a story with
you that we could be working on at odd times. I have a good all-around
company here on the lot."

"I had most o