she said flatteringly, as she sped to the closet. "Here! Give me a hand
with it!"

"With what?"

"The wardrobe trunk, of course. I've been looking at it and trying to
get it open, but I cannot do it in there. I'm going out in that trunk!"

"Eh?" said Anthony, tugging at it quite stupidly.

"Open it!" Mary commanded.

Anthony opened it.

"Yes, there's room and to spare, if you'll take out those drawers and
things!" the girl said quickly. "No! Pile them in the closet neatly;
she'll look in there! Now, about your man; is he strong?"

"Very, I believe."

"Get him here, quick!" said Mary.

She seemed to have taken matters into her own hand; more, she seemed to
know what she was about. Anthony, after an instant of blank staring,
pushed four times on the button of Johnson Boller's room, which signal
indicated that Wilkins was needed in a hurry.

Some four or five seconds they stood, breathing hard, both of them, and
listening for the sounds of disaster which might echo any minute from
the corridor. They had not echoed when Wilkins appeared.

"You! Wilkins is your name?" Mary said. "Wilkins, I'm going to get into
the trunk! Have you grasped that?"

"Why--yes, Miss!"

"And you, instantly, are going to take the trunk, with me in it, to my
home--you know where that is? You don't, of course. Well, load the trunk
into a taxi and tell the man to go across to West End Ave!"

"And the corner of Eighty--th Street!" Anthony supplied.

"Exactly!" said the girl. "Go to the side door and take in the trunk,
through the yard, of course, and say it is for Felice--Felice Moreau, my
maid? Have you the name, Wilkins?"

"Felice Moreau, miss. Yes, miss," said the blunderer.

"And then take it to her room and get out!" Mary concluded. "Don't lock
the thing. Load it into the back of the cab with yourself and try to get
it open a little so that I'll have air, when we've started!"

Saying which, Mary Dalton, who knew a really desperate situation when
she saw one, and who also inherited much of her father's superb
executive ability in a genuine emergency--Mary gathered her skirts and
stepped into the trunk, huddling down as prettily and gracefully as if
it had been rehearsed for weeks!

She looked at Wilkins, and Wilkins, with a sweep, had closed the lid;
and with a great emotional gulp Wilkins looked at his master and said:

"_My eye_, sir! A bit of all right, that, Mr. Fry!"

Anthony Fry nodded quickly and thrust several bill