“I might help,” said the Pixie. “I rather like a lark of that kind.”
“Oh, if you’d help,” said Wendell. “That would be great. What could you do?”
“Well, I have some rather neat transformation charms, myself,” said the Pixie. “I suppose if I once got you into the house, you could do the rest.”
“I guess so,” said Wendell. “I could hide in the oven or something.”
“I’ll have to make you pretty small to get into one of these gas ranges they use now-a-days,” said the Pixie thoughtfully. “You have to think of everything, you know, in this business, or else you lose by a fluke. I have it. I’ll change myself into an organ grinder, and you into the monkey.{67}”
“Yes!” jeered Wendell. “Nice chance a monkey would have to be let into anybody’s house.”
“Well, of course,” said the Pixie, somewhat crestfallen, “it was only a suggestion.”
“It’s got to be something that anybody would be glad to have in their house,” said Wendell. “Something helpful. A furnace man. Or a gas man—to read the meter.”
“Nobody’s glad to have him in their house,” grunted the Pixie. “But I get your idea. Why not a plumber to stop a leak? I have a fine plumber’s transformation among my charms. I’ll be the plumber and you can go as my assistant. Good idea, what?”
“The very thing,” said Wendell.
“Well, after school to-morrow, you get into your oldest clothes, and I’ll come around.”
Wendell hurried home the next afternoon and hunted out an old suit that he had withheld from the Morgan Memorial Goodwill bag, in case of a painting job or something. Hardly had he got into these clothes, when he heard an impatient honking in the street. Looking out, he saw in front of the curb a huge Cadillac with the driver’s seat occupied by a young chap in workingman’s clothes who grinned up at him and beckoned frantically.
Wendell went down.
“I wouldn’t have known you,” he said. “It’s a fine disguise.”
“I think it’s rather neat,” returned the Pixie with quiet pride. He had a young, pleasant, intelligent face, and no one could possibly have taken him for a{68} Pixie. He was very suitably dressed in khaki trousers, blue coat, tan shoes, and visored cap, all somewhat creased and soiled, and a bundle of tools lay on the seat beside him.
“Where did you get the car?” asked Wendell.
“Part of the outfit,” responded the Pixie. “I couldn’t pass for a plumber, these days, could I, unless I went to my job in a high-powered touring car?”
The Pixie guided the car deftly down the hill, and turned from the dimpling blue Charles River into Beacon Street. They spun out over the smooth pavement through Boston and into Brookline, consulted the address that the Beauteous Maiden had written down, conferred with a policeman or two, and at length turned into one of the pretty winding roads that net the Boston suburbs.
“That’s it,” said the Pixie. “There’s the number.”
It was an attractive modern house of the near-Colonial style of architecture, white-painted, with green blinds, a brick porch, a very well-kept lawn, the whole tasteful, but not pretentious.
The Pixie rang the bell.
After a few moments, the door was opened by a young lady, who, while not positively deformed, was so very, very plain, that Wendell knew at once that she was the Ugly Stepsister.
“Leak in the bathroom?” asked the Pixie, with a concise, business-like air.
“I didn’t know it. I’ll ask Mummer,” said the young lady. She left the door ajar, and they heard{69} her calling, “Mummer!” as she retreated to the back of the house.
“I might slip in now, don’t you think?” asked Wendell.
“No, no!” whispered the Pixie sternly. “Wait and walk in like a gentleman. No sneaking when you’re with me, young man.”
Wendell felt somewhat abashed, and yet resentful.
“I’d like to know if it isn’t sneaking to—” he began, but just then a door opened from the kitchen and the Cruel Stepmother came forward. She had projecting teeth, and a hooked nose and chin, and her hair straggled uncombed about her face.
“What do you want?” she said.
“Leak in the bathroom,” said the Pixie briefly. “Your husband telephoned.”
“Oh,” said she. “Right up the stairs there.”
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