e bulletin-board he'd made
some important discoveries. I suppose, though, they're frightful
technicalities that no one ever heard of."

"Well," said Lucille, considering, "he discovered the rings of Saturn
and the Milky Way."

"The rings of Saturn! Why, I thought those had been discovered _ages_
ago. He must be a terribly old man. I remember reading about them when
I was an infant in arms."

"It was a good while ago," said Lucille. "Eight or nine years, at
least."

"And the Milky Way!" continued Patty, with a show of incredulity. "I
don't see how people could have helped discovering that long ago. I
could have done it myself, and I don't pretend to know anything about
astronomy."

"Oh, of course," Lucille hastened to explain, "the phenomenon had been
observed before, but had never been accounted for."

"I see," said Patty, surreptitiously taking notes. "He must really be an
awfully important man. How did he happen to do all this?"

"He went up in a balloon," said Lucille, vaguely.

"A balloon! What fun!" exclaimed Patty, her reportorial instinct waking
to the scent. "They use balloons a lot more in Europe than they do
here."

"I believe he has his balloon with him here in America," said Lucille.
"He never travels without it."

"What's the good of it?" inquired Patty. "I suppose," she continued,
furnishing her own explanation, "it gets him such a lot nearer to the
stars."

"That's without doubt the reason," said Lucille.

"I wish he'd send it up here," sighed Patty. "Do you know any more
interesting details about him?"

"N--no," said Lucille; "I can't think of any more at present."

"He's certainly the most interesting professor I ever heard of," said
Patty, "and it's strange I never heard of him before."

"There seem to be a good many things you have never heard of," observed
Lucille.

"Yes," acknowledged Patty; "there are."

"Well, Patty," said Priscilla, emerging from the discussion on the other
side of the room, "if you're going to dinner with me, you'd better stop
fooling with Lucille, and go home and get your work done."

"Very well," said Patty, rising with obliging promptitude. "Good-by,
girls. Come and see me and I'll give you some fudge that's done. Thank
you for the information," she called back to Lucille.

* * * * *

THE Monday afternoon following, Patty and Priscilla, with two or three
other girls, came strolling back from the lake, jingling their sk