"Not that I'd care to," Dozia answered witheringly. "I can't see that the adventure 'got us anywhere' as brother Tom would say. I haven't any brother, you know, Jane dear, but it always sounds better to blame one's slang on him, don't you think?"
"I'm positive," said Jane, "but I have a trick of blaming mine on Judy. Wonder will she sleep all day because I, the faithful alarm clock, did not go off at her ear. There's the bell! I'm not very hungry. As an appetiser I think a night such as the last rather a flivver."
"Isn't it? I have that widely advertised gone feeling myself. Here's a chance to duck in without being noticed."
"We were out for early exercise," prompted Jane significantly, "and don't be too intelligent about that fire when they ask."
"'Deef' and dumb," quibbled Dozia. "Thank you for the party, Jane. I had a lov-el-ly time."
"Don't mention it," whispered Jane, as the line of students swallowed the two adventurers.
But the day was "fraught with questions," as Judith Stearns put it, deploring her own inability to obtain any "intelligent account of the whole performance." It became known early that the two juniors who had been searched for during the night, were not others than Jane and Dozia, but even a veritable grilling at the hands of a picked corps of sophs brought nothing more definite from the wayfarers than "they were over visiting Lenox and the 'fire' was a false alarm."
"And of course we couldn't put our heads out, for fear of panic," grumbled Nettie Brocton.
The day passed somehow, and it was conspicuous by an entire absence of freshmen from the usual intermingling between periods. Even to Jane the reason for this was not clear until, in a burst of confidence with Judith, she outlined her plan of staying over at Lenox "until the ghost business was disposed of."
"Oh, I know," she explained while Judith pondered. "Miss Gifford is keeping them home to prevent them gabbing. That's darling of her. She wants to give me—the newly discovered spook sleuth—a decent chance. Are you coming over with me tonight, Judy?"