"Don't I know that? And don't I know who is suspected, too?" returned Dora.
"Oh, Dora! Don't say it!" protested Dorothy, in horror.
"I don't say I believe it. But you know very well that Billy is up to all sorts of mischief."
"I know he goes to Central High. But all the boys who go to our school are not angelic."
"Far from it," sighed her sister, pensively.
"And 'Short and Long' is a regular little _snipe_, sometimes!" said Dora, with emphasis.
"But to rob a store!" gasped her twin sister.
"He was seen around there the afternoon before. Why, I know that a policeman has been to his house looking for him, and nobody has seen Short and Long since Thursday night."
"But the robbery was committed some time Tuesday night."
"He wasn't suspected at first. Perhaps he thought nobody had noticed him helping the men in the afternoon."
"Of course they were!" cried Dora. "The city engineer's office sent no men to run that street line. Those fellows were taking measurements right back of Stresch & Potter's building--and Short and Long was helping them. And, now, when the hue and cry is raised, he's gone."
"Oh, Dora! It would be dreadful," sighed Dorothy. "One of our Central High boys."
"And one that's always been just as full of mischief as an egg is full of meat," snapped Dora.
Now, supposing there had been a blind person in the canoe with the Lockwood sisters, that unfortunate person could never in this world have told which girl spoke at each time. Their voices were exactly alike--the same inflection, the same turning of phrases, the exact tone.
Nor could this supposititious blind person--had his eyes been suddenly opened--have been able to tell the girls apart, either!
For Dora and Dorothy Lockwood were exactly the same height, of the same physical development, and with the same mannerisms and carriage. Both had a wealth of rather light brown hair, and that hair was tied with ribbons of exactly the same shade, and tied in exactly the same kind of bow. They possessed two pairs of very nice gray eyes, usually sparkling with fun. Each had a dimple at the left side of her pretty lips, and when they smiled that dimple came into prominence at once. The turn of their chins, the shape of their noses and ears, the breadth of their foreheads--every feature was the same. One's reflection in the looking-glass could be no more exactly like the original than was her sister.