Chapter XX: The Gaiety of Going

"Oh, Glorious gaiety!"

"Oh, delightful dissipation!"

"Oh, luscious loafing!"

"Oh, wayside wanderings!"

These remarks emanated from the exuberant spirits of Jack Kimball, Paul Hastings, Ed Foster and Walter Pennington.

It was a few evenings after the moving picture performance had ended so abruptly, and the young men insisted that this time they would "take in" some other attractions. The young ladies were almost equally enthusiastic, and therefore it was decided that the beautiful June evening be spent in the perfectly innocent sport of further sight-seeing at the select summer colony centre.

On the other evening when Ed thrust the light under the eyes of the little singer, who was following the manager's instructions to "sing for all she was worth, to catch the crowd," and the girl had darted away, frightened at the rather daring act of attempt at recognition, Cora insisted that the singer was none other than Rose Catron.

But the darkness and confusion of the place made it impossible for even the Chelton boys to make their way back of the stage and investigate further.

Jack did try it, but the tangle of boxes and heaps of stage fixings so blocked his way that he was forced to give up before he reached what ought to be the stage entrance. Ed and Walter searched for the manager with equally unsatisfactory results, and so, for the time being, the quest had to be abandoned; although Cora was keenly disappointed in having to leave the place with no clue as to the real identity of the little singer.

That the girls had not drowned themselves was all the assurance that Belle needed to restore her peace of mind on that subject, while Bess insisted she would take the _Flyaway_ and run down to the place so early next morning that if the performer should prove to be Rose, she would scarcely have had time to pick up her things in daylight, and again escape. Hazel was also interested when told of the girls' strange story, and in her gentle yet decisive way, she offered to do what she could while at the beach to discover the possible whereabouts of Rose and Nellie. But the search was unavailing, as no one in authority at the moving picture theatre would answer questions satisfactorily.

"To-night," said Walter, as they started out again, "let the girls choose the attraction."

They sauntered along the brilliantly-lighted boardwalk. All the style available at the colony seemed to be on parade, and, as far as our girl friends were concerned, they would really have preferred to remain in the procession, but for the knowledge that the boys wanted to see what was going on in the big building at the end of the pier.

"The Human Washing Machine!" shouted Jack, after a glance at the sign. "Now there is a practical attraction and I am willing to pay the bill for 'doing up' every one in the crowd."

To this novelty the party betook themselves. Outside the entrance were people deliberating upon going in, but hesitating because the billboards announced that "each person would be put through the most novel and most complete process of washing to be obtained anywhere, at the low cost of ten cents the person."

But the Chelton folks were not afraid--they might have halted at the ironing possibility, but nothing in the way of washing had any terrors for the motor girls and their friends.

"Oh, my!" exclaimed Belle. "I could never go in that!"

"Why?" demanded Walter. "It looks perfectly tempting. Smell that soap suds!" A whiff came out of the building to them.

"And look at the blueing," cried Cora, pointing to a mass of blue water flowing from a pipe outside the structure. "If we never had the 'blues' we will have them now--all ready-made."

"If never you've been blue, prepare to be blue now," quoted Ed, with semi-tragic effect.

"Come along! Come right along!" shouted the "barker," or man who was booming the attraction. "This way for the greatest sensation outside of flying! Step this way--everybody! You pays your money and you gets a good wash! Satisfaction guaranteed. The servant problem solved. Here you are, young ladies and gentlemen--right this way!" and he looked at our friends in a humorous manner.

"Hear that?" called Jack. "He has us spotted, all right. He knows we need it, maybe. I'm going in first."

"That's the way to talk," commented the barker. "You'll never regret it, my friend. Step this way to the ticket office. Remember, ladies and gentlemen," he went on, in louder tones, "this is the only human washing machine on the beach. There are washing machines run by human beings but this is absolutely and without doubt the only self-regulated, double acting, six cylinder, four speeds forward and reverse machine, that washes human beings in the short space of ten minutes--one sixth of an hour--six hundred seconds, and I say that without fear of successful contradiction. This way--everybody!"

"Here goes," went on Jack, as he purchased a number of tickets from a roll unwound by a woman in a little cage of an office. "I'll try it first, and if I survive the bleaching process the rest of you can come in."

"Oh!" cried Bess. "I'll never, never do it!"

"Me, either," added Belle.

"Wait until we see what it is," suggested Cora. "It may be great fun, and, as long as it's not vulgar I'm going in, if Jack says it's all right."

"Come one, come all!" the barker could be heard droning. The party of boys and girls went into the place, and found themselves in the midst of an excited and jolly crowd. Some had been washed, others needed washing, some wanted washing, and others desired it, but feared to undertake the ordeal.

"Good-bye!" called Jack, gaily, as he walked along a narrow passage, protected by a railing on either side, for an attendant directed there all who wanted to indulge in the new sensation.

"Hold on!" cried Ed and Walter. "We're coming, too!"

"Get a hustle on," ordered Jack. "The water is just right now."

The girls stood where they could watch the process. Suddenly Jack and his chums could be seen bobbing up and down, as if they were in a boat on a choppy sea, and then the girls noticed that the lads were on a sort of endless, moving sidewalk, that did all sorts of queer "stunts" while, underneath, water rushed and bubbled along, seemingly all about the boys, but never touching them.

"You are now in the tub of soapy water," announced a man who was evidently there for that purpose. "You are getting the first layer of contamination off."

Faster and faster went the moving, endless sidewalk. It surged up and down, and from side to side. The boys were laughing and joking, and they had to cling to the railing to maintain their footing.

"This is great!" cried Jack.

"All to the la-la!" added Ed.

"It most----" began Walter, but, at that minute all three came to the end of the first scrubbing process, and were precipitated upon a highly polished slide--somewhat like the bamboo ones that are so popular at summer resorts. It was like glass, and, as there were only a few lights at this point, whereas the "tub" was brilliantly illuminated, the boys went down in a heap, and slid along.

"Part of the game," commented Jack, grimly.

"You are now on the washing board," came from the announcer. "Keep perfectly still--there is no danger."

In front of, and behind, the boys came other persons--slipping, sliding, shouting, yelling, laughing, gasping and struggling.

"Wow!" yelled Ed. "Here comes another tub to go through!"

They had reached the end of the "washboard" and once more the three boys were tossed up and down, and from side to side, while rushing water under them seemed to give the effect of being put through a boiler of suds.

"Look out! Here's something new!" yelled Ed, a moment later, and, sure enough, they emerged, after a trip up and down, and around corners, upon a scrubbing board, made of glass, under which water was rushing with such effect that it seemed as if they were going to be soaked.

"This is great!" cried Jack, as he reached it. "I thought I was in for it that time, but it's all to the soap and starch; that's what!"

His companions, and many others, followed, and, a moment later, they were facing what looked like two rolls, such as collars and cuffs are run through.

"Do we go through them?" gasped Jack, halting a moment as he got on his feet after the slide down the scrubbing board.

"Sure--go ahead," said Walter.

"Oh, mercy! He won't really go through those rolls, will he?" gasped Belle.

The rolls did look formidable, and they were whirling around at a rapid rate.

"Be a sport," called Ed. "When you've been rolled out you'll be all right, Jack."

"All right--you go ahead," retorted Jack, stepping back. "You can have my place."

"It's all right, fellows--go ahead," one of the attendants assured them. Jack faced the revolving rolls. The attendant gave him a gentle push, and, before Jack knew it he was swallowed up in the whirling cylinders.

"Oh!" screamed Bess. "He'll be killed!"

But neither she nor the others could see what happened, for Jack vanished, and, after him went Walter and Ed.

Once through the rolls, they were tossed with considerable force into a wringer ten times the size of the one through which they had just passed. Like the first the rolls were upright, and not horizontal. They seemed to be made of rubber, and were more real than the first. Jack tried to hold back, but it was of no use. He had been tossed fairly into the big wringer, and, a moment later, he found himself being drawn through. To his surprise the rolls were of straw, covered with cotton-batting, and they compressed sufficiently to allow him to go through easily.

"Come on, fellows!" Jack tried to call to his chums, but his mouth was stopped for an instant by the soft rolls. Besides, there was no need for his invitation, since Ed and Walter, whether they wanted to or not, found themselves being drawn in with irresistible force.

By this time the girls had run up, not without some little alarm, and they saw the boys come through the rolls.

"Oh--they--they're all--all right," gasped Belle, her hand on her heart.

"Of course," cried Jack, with a laugh. "We're most done, ladies. Then it will be your turn."

"Never!" declared Cora.

"Oh, you'll like it, ladies," the attendant assured them. "Next comes the blueing water," and Jack and his friends, together with a number of other persons who were undertaking the ordeal, were once more on a moving sidewalk, sliding up and down, from side to side, and over a mass of blue, rushing water, which, seen through the sections of the walk, looked as if, every minute, it would surge up all about their feet. But they were as dry as the proverbial bone.

"Now if you will kindly step this way you will be hung out to dry," called the attendant, and a door opened, and the boys with several others were fairly shot out into a yard, where they saw what they supposed were persons hanging over clothes lines.

Jack recoiled at this.

"Go ahead. Be a sport," urged Ed.

Then Walter burst into a laugh.

"Why, they're dummies!" he gasped. "Straw figures!" And so they proved.

"All over!" announced a man. "Have another wash. It will do you good."

"Not for mine," declared Jack. "I'm clean enough to last a month."

"I'm going to have some more," announced Walter.

"So am I," declared Ed. "I'll go through with the girls this time."

"And there's Paul yet to be initiated," added Walter.

They hurried back to where they had left their friends.

"The greatest ever!" declared Jack. "I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Go ahead, girls. It's the greatest fun!"

"But those wringers?" faltered Bess. "Aren't you pressed flat?"

"Try it--and see," replied Jack, all unconscious of the joke he was perpetrating at the expense of the plump girl.

"Were they rubber?" asked Belle.

"Go through and see," was all Jack would answer.

"I'll try it," volunteered Paul.

"So will I," added Cora bravely.

"Oh, don't!" begged Belle.

"Of course I will. I'm not afraid, after Ed, Walter and Jack have been through it. Besides, look at all the other girls and ladies who venture in."

"That's the way to talk," said the attendant admiringly. "In you go, young lady," and he assisted Cora upon the narrow footpath of the first "tub." Cora went through it all, with Paul close behind her. It was all perfectly proper, and not too rough, and the girl thoroughly enjoyed it, even to the two rolling machines. She came back with her cheeks flushed from the exercise and excitement.

"Go ahead, girls!" urged Cora to her chums. "It is a most novel experience."

"I would, only for the wringers," agreed Bess.

"And I would--only--only for the slide," declared Belle, and no amount of urging could induce her or her sister to venture the novelty. But they had lots of fun watching others get "washed," and even Hazel took a trip, with Jack to keep her company, for he reconsidered his determination not to take another "dip."

Jack, his chums, the boys, and Cora and Hazel were such a merry party, and attracted so much attention that the man in charge of the machine, after they had each enjoyed two trips through it, came up, and said:

"Say, go through again--for nothing."

"Why?" inquired Jack.

"Oh, because you're such a jolly bunch that you are drawing a big crowd in here," was the explanation. "The man outside is turning 'em away. That's good business for us. Have another dip or two for nothing. Only keep up the laughing and shouting."

"No, thank you," responded Cora, with a smile. "We are not human advertisements, if we have gone through a human washing machine," and, to the man's evident disappointment, they walked out of the place.

Bess laughed so uproariously at the sight of a stout woman essaying a trip through the machine, that the motor girl had to sit down on a box to get her breath.

"Oh, I never laughed so much in all my life," she said.

"Laugh and grow fat," commented the attendant, meaning no harm.

Bess stopped her mirth suddenly, and gave the man such a look, that, as Jack said, if glances could kill, the poor chap would have been "crippled for life."

"I wish he was!" snapped Bess, who was very sensitive about her weight. "I never heard of such a thing--just because I laughed a little."

"You should have gone through the rolls," ventured Cora. "Though they looked hard, they were as soft as a feather pillow. Come on; there's time yet."

But even the inducement of "feather pillows," would not tempt Bess or Belle to try the machine.

"Well, what next?" asked Jack, as they stood out on the big pier, and listened to the mournful swish of the incoming tide underneath. "What do you say to another moving picture show, or the band concert, or some salt-water taffy or even a lobster supper? I'm game."

"I vote for lobsters," called Ed.

"Because they're such friends of yours," retorted Walter.

"Mighty good friends, at the prices they charge down here," commented Paul. "I haven't dared look one in the face."

"Silly--a lobster hasn't a face," said his sister.

"Well, their eyes, then," amended Paul.

"I think my sister and I must really go," came from Paul. "It is getting late--for us."

"Yes, it is too late for anything more to-night," was Cora's retort. "If we don't get in on good time, you know, boys, our liberty on other occasions may be restricted."

"Well, have your way about it," answered Jack, good-naturedly. "There are other nights coming."

"Yes, let's go home," added Belle, and Bess tried to hide a sleepy yawn, for they had traveled about considerable that day, and she was tired.

So Paul and Hazel said good-night, and the others, entering the autos, turned into the ocean boulevard and started toward Clover Cottage.

"We'll drive up, and put the machines away later," suggested Jack, when they were near their home quarters. "We really have been quite a long time away."

They found Mrs. Robinson and Miss Steel waiting on the porch.

"Why, mamma has not retired yet," exclaimed Bess. "I wonder at her sitting out of doors in the damp."

But the reason of this was soon made plain. Mrs. Robinson was too frightened to go indoors!

"Oh, we have had such a dreadful time," she sobbed. "I cannot see how you could have gone and left us in this lonely place all this while."

Bess instantly had her arms around the trembling little woman. Mrs. Robinson had always been "babied" by the girls, and that she was very nervous her whole family knew too well.

"Mother dear," began Bess, "we did not think it too late. You said we might stay until--after nine----"

"But, daughter! How did I know we were to be frightened to death by--burglars!"

"Burglars!" chorused the boys.

"Yes," put in Miss Steel, "we distinctly heard them in the dining room, and when I had the courage to attempt to go in they--blew out the lamp!"

"Mercy!" exclaimed Belle, recoiling from the window she had been leaning against.

"It might have been--a draft of wind," suggested Walter.

"But a draft could not knock over a chair," Miss Steel told him, somewhat indignantly. "We would have gone over to the hotel if we could have left any word for you, but, you see, we could not go inside, even to write a note."

A thought flashed through Cora's mind. The mention of "note" had inspired it. She drew Bess and Belle aside.

"I wouldn't wonder if these runaway girls came back," she whispered. "We must go inside and see if they--left a note."

"Go inside!" repeated Belle. "I guess not."

"Come on, boys! Let's investigate," said Walter to the others, opening the hall door and striking a match as he did so. He lighted the hanging lamp in the little hall, while the women, with Bess and Belle, actually left the porch and went out on the sidewalk to be at a safe distance.

Cora followed the boys.

"Who's here?" asked Jack as he entered the dining room.

"Light up!" commanded Ed. "We might step on somebody's fingers."

The dining-room light was soon burning. Yes, a chair had been overturned, and another!

"The flower vase is broken!" exclaimed Cora, seeing the wreck in the centre of the table.

"And I gathered those posies!" said Ed. "Just my luck!"

"Come right along, gentlemen," invited Walter to the invisible intruders. "Come along! This way to the refrigerator!"

"Be careful, Walter," cautioned Cora, for although she had undertaken to follow the boys she had not counted on seeing things thus upset.

"There are candles in the pantry," suggested Ed. "I know, because I put them there, after I found the oil can in the cellar."

Jack and Walter each lighted a candle. They then undertook a systematic search. Closets, cupboards, corners and stairways were ransacked, every door was opened and closed, to make sure no one swung on the hinges. Then the searching party went upstairs.

The same thoroughness was observed on the second floor, but no hint of whom the intruders might be was brought to light. It took some time to go over all the smaller rooms, and, when every nook had been finally explored, Cora sat down for a moment on the hall seat.

"Listen!" she whispered.

A sound from the dining room had caught her attention.

"It's the girls," said Walter, as he, too, heard something downstairs.

"They would never come in until we assured them everything was all right," objected Cora.

"Let's go down," said Ed, at the same moment, almost falling over the bannister in his haste to get down quickly.

"There they go!" called Walter, who was just back of Jack, and, as he said this, a figure darted out the rear door, and made away, before the boys could get out of the house to follow.

"This way!" shouted Jack to Ed, as they finally did reach the open yard. "I saw them go over that fence."

A light from the street at the rear of the cottage was now to be seen.

"An auto!" yelled Ed. "They are ready to start! Quick, Walter! Head them off at the corner!"

But the first buzz of the strange machine was of that determined quality that usually indicates great power, capable of spurting some rods away with one great, grand whizz! The car was out of sight, and out of sound, while Walter was struggling with the stickers of a barbed wire fence. A dark stretch of road, that at once united and separated two summer resorts, made the flight of the intruders' car too simple to speculate upon.

"If our garage was not so far away," complained Walter, returning from the fence with bleeding fingers, "we'd have a race."

"Hanged funny, isn't it?" commented Ed.

"As if that--person--we saw get away was a robber! Why, that was a girl--she crawled under the fence!" declared Walter.

"She may have left me a bunch of violets," remarked Jack with a sigh, as they all three went back to the cottage, where, at the steps, Cora was waiting. "Say, sis," her brother went on, "let's go in and look over things now. I have an idea that our visitor came to wash up more dishes!"

"And I also have an idea that the visitor--had been here before," replied Cora. "They--he--she, or it--knew how to open that funny catch on the screen door!"

Re-entering the house the boys made all sorts of fun of each other, for each and all of them allowing the "burglar" to escape.

"But, joking aside," said Cora, "I know I heard the noise in the dining room, and I'm going to look there first."

"For my violets," whimpered Jack, with a sniffle.

"June violets!" mocked Cora.

"Well--daisies then. I saw daisies as we came out, and I'd just as soon have daisies."

Ed and Jack held their candles high above their heads as they tiptoed into the dining room.

A bit of paper fluttered from the hanging lamp!

"More directions on 'How to Use This Cottage!'" roared Jack. "There, didn't I tell you! This is the second note left this way. Must have come by a homing-pigeon. Well, I'd just as soon have a dove as a bouquet of violets."