Of course we were furious. Carol confessed to me that she had left her journal open on the desk in the den, and the last entry was awfully like what that little wretch had written, only Carol had spoken of composing a poem on "Feeding the Pigeons." She _had_ slept on the porch all morning, because it was a lovely mild day and I was away with Mother at a luncheon in Bridgeton. But she hadn't mentioned this in her journal.
It is perfectly useless to argue with the Imp, or to scold or reason with her. She can go you one better every single time. We concluded that the best thing to do was ignore the incident entirely. So we left the paper hanging on the barn-door till the wind blew it away. A course of action like that makes the Imp madder than if you got purple in the face with fury. I've advised Carol not to leave her journal in the den any more, but to keep it in her room, and she says she will.
All this, however, isn't telling what happened to Louis. He told us about it this afternoon while we were resting on our veranda after a hot session of pitching the basketball about. After a while we just had to sit down and get our breath, and the Imp strolled off by herself somewhere. It was then that Louis told us the strange thing that happened yesterday.
It seems that his Aunt Yvonne has gone to New York on a visit for a few days, and he has been alone with his Uncle John and the servant. Yesterday afternoon, about five o'clock, a boy rode up from the village on a bicycle with a telegram for his uncle. The old gentleman opened it, but couldn't read it because he had mislaid his glasses. So he got Louis to read it to him. Louis says the thing was a cablegram from some place in France--he can't remember the name--and that it was the queerest message. It ran like this:
Time almost ripe. Have you the necessary papers? Sail next month.
When his uncle heard this he became terribly excited and began to walk up and down the room very fast. But when Louis asked him what it all meant, all he would say was:
"It is not for you to inquire or for me to explain just yet, Monsieur!" Louis says his uncle often calls him "monsieur," and he can't understand why. He thinks it's generally when the old gentleman forgets himself or is excited. But it makes Louis feel very queer.
