You don't want to have friends Bill and I
wouldn't approve of, do you?"
"Oh,--I don't know _what_ I want! I wish you'd go 'way, and leave me
alone!"
"I will in a minute. Tell me your friends' names."
"I won't."
"Then I shall ask Ray Gale. He knows them,--he recognised them the day
they were here, and you forbade him to tell me who they were."
"Then if he knows them, isn't that enough to assure you of their
respectability?"
"It isn't a question of respectability,--I want to know why they are
telephoning you,--not casually,--but apparently on some important
matter."
"That's _my_ business. Oh, Patty, let me alone!"
Azalea was clearly overwrought, and in another moment would fly into an
hysterical tantrum. But Patty made one more effort.
"Just tell me the name," she said, gently.
"Well--Smith. There, _now_ are you satisfied?"
"I am not," said Patty, truthfully. "Good night, Azalea."
She went thoughtfully away, and communicated to Bill the whole
conversation.
"She's a queer girl," Farnsworth remarked, after he had heard all about
the afternoon telephoning. "Do you know, Patty, that letter which she
pretended came from her father,--she wrote herself."
"What?"
"She did; and on my own typewriter,--here in our library."
"What _do_ you mean?"
"Just what I say. I knew it, the moment I saw it, for the writing on my
machine is so familiar to me, I can recognise it instantly.
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