hoburn stopped in long enough to say: "What's this I hear about Carter
making an ass of himself to-day?"

"I haven't heard it," I answered. "What is it?"

But he only laughed and turned up his collar to go.

"Jove, Minnie," he said, "why do women of your spirit always champion
the losing side? Be a good girl; give me a hand now and then with this
thing, and I'll see you don't lose by it."

"We're not going to lose," I retorted angrily. "Nobody has left yet. We
are still ahead on the books."

He came over and shook a finger in my face.

"Nobody has left--and why? Because they're all taking a series of baths.
Wait until they've had their fifteen, or twenty-one, or whatever the
cure is, and then see them run!"

It was true enough; I knew it.

CHAPTER XV

THE PRINCE, WITH APOLOGIES

Tillie brought the supper basket for the shelter-house about six o'clock
and sat down for a minute by the fire. She said Mr. Pierce (Carter to
her) had started out with a gun about five o'clock. It was foolish, but
it made me uneasy.

"They've gone plumb crazy over that Mr. von Inwald," she declared. "It
makes me tired. How do they know he's anything but what he says he is?
He may be a messenger from the emperor of Austria, and he may be selling
flannel chest protectors. Miss Cobb's all set up; she's talking about
getting up an entertainment and asking that Miss Summers to recite."

She got up, leaving the basket on the hearth.

"And say," she said, "you ought to see that dog now. It's been soakin'
in peroxide all day!"

She went out with the peroxide, but a moment later she opened the door
and stuck her head in, nodding toward the basket.

"Say," she said, "the chef's getting fussy about the stuff I'm using in
the diet kitchen. You've got to cut it out soon, Minnie. If I was you
I'd let him starve."

"What!" I screeched, and grasped the rail of the spring.

"Let him starve!" she repeated.

"Wha--what are you talking about?" I demanded when I got my voice.

She winked at me from the doorway.

"Oh, I'm on all right, Minnie!" she assured me, "although heaven only
knows where he puts it all! He's sagged in like a chair with broken
springs."

I saw then that she thought I was feeding Senator Biggs on the sly, and
I breathed again. But my nerves were nearly gone, and when just then I
heard a shot from the direction of the deer park, even Tillie noticed
how pale I got.

"I don't know what's come over you, Minnie,"