quaint savant that gives them to a schoolgirl to play with? May I see the names of your girls?"
"I only accept pupils with the highest references, sir," said Miss Lomas, overawed but fuming.
So Reggie was allowed to inspect her register. He studied it in vain. No name suggested connection with any of the few archaeologists likely to own a Hottentot Venus. He gave it up.
"Well, sir?" Miss Lomas was triumphant and disdainful. "I am very much obliged to you for your courtesy. I regret exceedingly that I have troubled you with my affairs. I need not ask you to waste any more of your valuable time on the case that I foolishly submitted to you."
"But, my dear Miss Lomas, I'm just gettin' interested," said Reggie, with an engaging smile. "You know, my first thoughts were that your children had been ragging."
"Really, Mr. Fortune! Your way of putting things! Please understand that the girls in my school do not 'rag'—as you call it. I think my sex leaves that to young men, Mr. Fortune."
"Women are so revoltin' nowadays," Reggie murmured. "I wonder—you have no new woman in the flock? No bold, bad rebel?" The face of Miss Lomas answered him. "I thought so. We must have the second solution. Somebody wanted somebody's photograph."
"But why? Why should one girl want to steal
