The Wrong Twin | Page 6

he now declared in a voice of
authority. "I bet she'll have a better moustache than that old Miss
Murphy's."

"Murtree," she corrected him, and spoke her thanks with a brightening
glance. "Here," she added, proffering her treasure, "take a good long
suck if you want to."
He did want to. His brother beheld him with anguished eyes. As Merle
demonstrated the problem in hydraulics the girl studied him more
attentively, then gleamed with a sudden new radiance.
"Oh, I'll tell you what let's do!" she exclaimed. "We'll change clothes
with each other, and then I'll be Ben Blunt without waiting till I get to
the great city. Cousin Juliana could pass me right by on the street and
never know me." She clapped her small brown hands. "Goody!" she
finished.
But the twins stiffened. The problem was not so simple.
"How do you mean--change clothes?" demanded Merle.
"Why, just change! I'll put on your clothes and look like a mere street
urchin right away."
"But what am I going to--"
"Put on my clothes, of course. I explained that."
"Be dressed like a girl?"
"Only till you get home; then you can put on your Sunday clothes."
"But they wouldn't be Sunday clothes if I had to wear 'em every day,
and then I wouldn't have any Sunday clothes."
"Stupid! You can buy new ones, can't you?"
"Well, I don't know."
"I'd give you a lot of money to buy some."
"Let's see it."

Surprisingly the girl stuck out a foot. Her ankle seemed badly swollen;
she seemed even to reveal incipient elephantiasis.
"Money!" she announced. "Busted my bank and took it all. And I put it
in my stocking the way Miss Murtree did when she went to Buffalo to
visit her dying mother. But hers was bills, and mine is nickels and
dimes and quarters and all like that--thousands of dollars' worth of 'em,
and they're kind of disagreeable. They make me limp--kind of. I'll give
you a lot of it to buy some new clothes. Let's change quick." She turned
and backed up to the Merle twin. "Unbutton my waist," she
commanded.
The Merle twin backed swiftly away. This was too summary a
treatment of a situation that still needed thought.
"Let's see your money," he demanded.
"Very well!" She sat on the grassy low mound above her forebear,
released the top of the long black stocking from the bite of a hidden
garter and lowered it to the bulky burden. "Give me your cap," she said,
and into Merle's cap spurted a torrent of coins. When this had become
reduced to a trickle, and then to odd pieces that had worked down about
the heel, the cap held a splendid treasure. Both twins bent excitedly
above it. Never had either beheld so vast a sum. It was beyond
comprehension. The Wilbur twin plunged a hand thrillingly into the
heap.
"Gee, gosh!" he murmured from the sheer loveliness of it. Shining
silver--thousands of dollars of it, the owner had declared.
"Now I guess you'll change," said the girl, observing the sensation she
had made.
The twins regarded each other eloquently. It seemed to be
acknowledged between them that anything namable would be done to
obtain a share of this hoard. Still it was a monstrous infamy, this thing
she wanted. Merle filtered coins through his fingers for the wondrous
feel of them.

"Well, mebbe we better," he said at last.
"How much do we get?" demanded Wilbur, exalted but still sane.
"Oh, a lot!" said the girl, carelessly. Plainly she was not one to haggle.
"Here, I'll give you two double handfuls--see, like that," and she
measured the price into the other cap, not skimping. They were
generous, heaping handfuls, and they reduced her horde by half.
"Now!" she urged. "And hurry! I must be far by nightfall. I'll keep my
shoes and stockings and not go barefoot till I reach the great city. But
I'll take your clothes and your cap. Unbutton my waist."
Again she backed up to Merle. He turned to Wilbur.
"I guess we better change with her for all that money. Get your pants
and waist off and I'll help button this thing on you."
It was characteristic of their relations that there was no thought of
Merle being the victim of this barter. The Wilbur twin did not suggest it,
but he protested miserably.
"I don't want to wear a girl's clothes."
"Silly!" said the girl. "It's for your own good."
"You only put it on for a minute, and sneak home quick," reminded his
brother, "and look at all the money we'll have! Here, show him again
all that money we'll have!"
And the girl did even so, holding up to him riches beyond the dreams
of avarice. There was bitterness in