Ethel Morton and the Christmas Ship Part 36

"As if the serpent were trying to put his tail into his mouth."

"I shall have to just smooth this over with a soft brush and wrap it up in a wet cloth until I get some more clay. If I let it get hard I can't finish it."

"What's that drip, Dorothy?" asked Helen, as a drop of water fell on the table before her.

They all looked at the ceiling where drops of water were a.s.sembling and beginning to fall with a soft splash. There was a scramble to get their work out of the way. Dorothy brought a salad bowl and placed it where it would catch the water and then ran to investigate the cause of the trouble.

At a cry from upstairs Helen and the Ethels ran to her help. Roger went to the foot of the stairs and called up to inquire if they wanted his a.s.sistance. Evidently they did, for he, too, disappeared. In a few minutes he re-appeared bearing d.i.c.ky in his arms--a d.i.c.ky sopping wet and much subdued.

"What in the world?" everybody questioned.

"Dorothy's found her clay," said Roger. "Come on, old man. Wrap Aunt Louise's tweed coat around you--so--and _run_ so you won't catch cold,"

and the two boys disappeared out of the front door, d.i.c.ky stumbling and struggling with the voluminous folds of his aunt's garment.

Dorothy and the other girls came down stairs in a few minutes.

"Do telephone to Aunt Marion's and see if Mother is there and ask her to come home," Dorothy begged Helen, while she gathered cloths and pans and went upstairs again, taking the maid with her.

"What did d.i.c.ky do?" asked the others again.

Both Ethels burst into laughter.

"He must have gone up in the attic and found Dorothy's clay, for he had filled up the waste pipe of the bath tub--"

"--and turned on the water, I'll bet!" exclaimed Tom.

"That's just what he did. It looks as if he'd been trying to float about everything he could find in any of the bedrooms."

"Probably he had a glorious time until the tub ran over and he didn't know how to stop it."

"d.i.c.ky's a great old man! I judge he didn't float himself!"

"Now Dorothy can finish her candlestick handle!"

CHAPTER XVIII

ETHEL BLUE AWAITS A CABLE

MRS. SMITH begged that the meeting should not adjourn, and under her direction the trouble caused by d.i.c.ky's entrance into the navy was soon remedied, although it was evident that the ceiling of the dining-room would need the attention of a professional.

Roger soon returned with the news that the honorary member of the Club had taken no cold, and every one settled down to work again, even Dorothy, who rescued enough clay from d.i.c.ky's earthworks to complete the handle of her candlestick.

"I'd like to bring a matter before this meeting," said Tom seriously when they were all a.s.sembled and working once more.

"Bring it on," urged the president.

"It isn't a matter belonging to this Club, but if there isn't any one else to do it it seemed to me--and to Father when I spoke to him about it--that we might do some good."

"It sounds mysterious. Let's have it," said James.

"It seemed to me as I thought over those movies the other night that there was a very good chance that that man Schuler--your singing teacher, you know, Fraulein's betrothed--wasn't dead after all."

"It certainly looked like it--the way he fell back against the orderly--he didn't look alive."

"He didn't--that's a fact. At the same time the film made one of those sudden changes right at that instant."

"Father and I thought that was so a death scene shouldn't be shown,"

said James.

"That's possible, but it's also possible that they thought that was a good dramatic spot to leave that group of people and go off to another group."

"What's your idea? I don't suppose we could find out from the film people."

"Probably not. It would be too roundabout to try to get at their operator in Belgium and very likely he wouldn't remember if they did get in touch with him."

"He must be seeing sights like that all the time."

"Brother Edward suggested when he heard us talking about it that we should send a cable to Mademoiselle and ask her. She must have known Mr.

Schuler here in the school at Rosemont."

"Certainly she did."

"Then she would have been interested enough in him to recall what happened when she came across him in the hospital."

"How could we get a message to her? We don't know where that hospital was. They don't tell the names of places even in newspaper messages, you know. They are headed 'From a town near the front.'"

"Here's where Edward had a great idea--that is, Father thought it was workable. See what you think of it."

The Club was growing excited. The Ethels stopped working to listen, Helen's face flushed with interest, and the boys leaned across the table to hear the plan to which Rev. Herbert Watkins had given his approval.

They knew that Tom's father, in his work among the poor foreigners in New York, often had to try to hunt up their relatives in Europe so that this would not be a matter of guesswork with him.

"It's pretty much guesswork in this war time," admitted Tom when some one suggested it. "You can merely send a cable and trust to luck that it will land somewhere. Here's Edward's idea. He says that the day we went to see Mademoiselle sail she told him that she was related to Monsieur Millerand, the French Minister of War. It was through her relationship with him that she expected to be sent where she wanted to go--that is, to Belgium."

"She was sent there, so her expectation seems to have had a good foundation."

"That's what makes Edward think that perhaps we can get in touch with her through the same means."

"Through Monsieur Millerand?"

"He suggests that we send a cable addressed to Mademoiselle--"

"Justine--"

"--Millerand in the care of Monsieur Millerand, Minister of War. We could say 'Is Schuler dead?' and sign it with some name she'd know in Rosemont. She'd understand at once that in some way news of his being in Belgium had reached here."