"Did you ever hear anything so absurd?" said Minerva.

"I think it would be picturesque," said Dora.

"And sensible, too," said Margaret, "because some of those scouts will
just stay here and gorge themselves and won't dance at all."

"I think it's a very good idea," said Townsend; "it will relieve
congestion here. A food traffic cop."

"I'll be it," shouted Pee-wee.

"Where is this romantic scaffold?" Townsend asked.

"The painters left it in the cellar," said Minerva. "Let's hurry, I'll
show you where it is."

There was, indeed, just time enough to arrange this novel life-saving
station with its picturesque gang-plank before the guests began to
arrive.

"And this is the end of our wild adventures on a foreign shore," said
Townsend, as he carried one end of the old scaffold across the
dim-lighted lawn accompanied by the group of excited maidens; "we wind
up at a lawn party. This is what the discoverer has brought us to."

"Don't you think he's just _killing_?" Minerva asked.

"More than that," said Townsend; "his hunter's stew is more than