For Mimi, the next few days rolled slowly into a week. There was constant fear that Madge would yet develop flu or . appearing people were not always delicate, Mimi concluded when a week passed and Madge had not so much as sneezed. Mimi, in her concern, had near for days. Just like an old hen with one chicken, Mimi told herself. She could better understand how Mother Dear fussed and over her when she had “been exposed.” All week, too, she had her eyes peeled for a letter postmarked in Germany. It was too soon to hear from Daddy but she couldn’t keep from watching and hoping. The second semester was well under way and the routine of a new schedule was becoming habit.  
“Betsy,” Mimi exclaimed the third Saturday after the skating party, “I have to do something exciting or !”
 
“I feel a fit coming on, too,” Betsy agreed on the bed in a pose.
 
“Let’s do something about it,” Mimi laughed.
 
“Name it. ‘Barkus is willing.’”
 
“Yes. Name it. What is there to do within these four walls that we have not tried? We have raided the kitchen at all hours, cooked after light bell, invaded College Hall, used the telephone without permission, cut assembly—all of it.”
 
“None of that is very devilish. I want to do something wild and woolly.”
 
“Like slip away from the campus!”
 
Once the words were out Mimi clapped her hand over her mouth. It was too late. She had said the very thing both of them were thinking.
 
“Would we dare?” Betsy breathed. Her blue eye was glittering, her brown eye clouded with fear.
 
“Dare? Madam! Is that a challenge? Did I ever take a dare?”
 
“Not since I’ve known you.”
 
“This will not be an exception. Let the ‘ways and means committee’ meet at once.”
 
“Uh—Oh! What’s up?” Sue cried as she and Chloe came in. Sue her books at the table. Chloe put hers in a neat stack. “Dirty work afoot at the cross roads. I can tell by the smooth and oily waves,” she made motions with her arms and hands, “that a storm is . Why are your heads so close together, amigas mias? Confess.”
 
Betsy and Mimi flushed guiltily.
 
“We’d better tell them so that if anything happens——”
 
Her pert face a question mark, Mimi was looking at Betsy.
 
“Yes, we’d better,” Betsy agreed.
 
“We are breaking jail,” Mimi said .
 
“When?” from Sue.
 
“How?” from Chloe.
 
“Right after lunch.” from Betsy.
 
“Disguised and out the servant’s entrance.” from Mimi.
 
“Well blow us down!” from Sue and Chloe.
 
“Don’t stand there paralyzed,” Mimi ordered. Now that the decision was made she was eager for action. “Y’all will have to help us borrow our disguises but first, cross your hearts and promise not to tell a soul.”
 
The promise was given. They wished they had courage to join in but they were ruled out at the first suggestion. Four people would be too . Two might prove too many.
 
Mimi could hardly swallow her lunch. The fated hour of two o’clock would never come. This was the hour washwomen waited for girls to claim laundry and to pay.
 
As soon as the bread pudding dishes were empty and every possible taste of chocolate sauce scraped up, the four occupants of Tumble Inn hastened to their and closed the door.
 
“Shall we lock it?” Chloe asked.
 
“No,” Betsy answered . “Pile things against it so that it would take a minute or two to get in but don’t lock it. If Mrs. Cole tried it and it didn’t open she’d ‘smell a mouse’ sure enough.”
 
Mimi laughed aloud as she had a mental picture of Mrs. Cole wrinkling up her nose and . Any kind of her and she set about changing her appearance in high glee.
 
From girls larger than they, they had borrowed skirts and long coats. Even their shoes were so large and run over, Mimi’s feet flapped like Charlie Chaplin’s as she moved nearer the mirror.
 
“My own Mother wouldn’t know me,” she commented.
 
“No, but Mrs. Cole will unless you do something about that unruly mop of red hair,” Sue contradicted.
 
Here was a problem. A beret would expose her features. The hair was not long enough to tuck under a hat with a brim and stay up. Regardless of the number of bobby pins put in, drake tails kept slipping down around Mimi’s neck.
 
Then Chloe had an inspiration.
 
“Wear a veil. Lots of the colored people do.”
 
There was a fifteen minute search for a veil. At that, a makeshift was used. Chloe draped a piece of black georgette around the crown of the hat and let it hang over where the red hair shone the brightest.
 
By the time Mimi was ready, Betsy was practically losing her skirt. When she moved toward the door it fell at her feet. Another five minute search. Sue dashing about borrowing safety pins. Now Betsy switched her rapidly like a Spanish dancer but the skirt stayed in place.
 
Looking more like caricatures or comic valentines than bona fide servants, the two girls ventured .
 
Mimi trembled and held her breath while Sue opened the door and peered down the hall. Getting safely from Tumble Inn to the service entrance was the most part of the whole journey. Once they reached the entrance they could run—oh how they could run—if there was danger of being recognized.
 
“The coast is clear,” Sue announced.
 
Looking squarely into each other’s eyes, the two silently pledged and . Mimi understood as clearly as if Betsy had said aloud, “No matter what happens, we are in this together.”
 
Not taking any one’s word, Mimi looked both up and down the hall herself. Then grabbing Betsy’s hand she jerked her over the threshold of Tumble Inn to the middle of the corridor. They walked by the second door of their suite as if they had never seen it before.
 
When they were to the turn, they heard Chloe and Sue behind them.
 
“Go back, meanies,” Betsy . “Do you want to get us caught?”
 
“Yes,” Sue hissed back. “If you’re caught before you get out we could say we were playing. Afterwards, well—it’s your funeral, but don’t say we didn’t warn you.”
 
Mimi wavered ............