She called Bengal to come aside with her, and Bengal, enraptured at being noticed by her divinity, trotted after her like a delighted Newfoundland puppy, bestowing clumsy caresses upon her as they proceeded.

“Oh, I’ve got the best joke on Pecky!” she gurgled, before Agony had had a chance to broach the subject herself.

“Yes?” said Agony.

“Did you know,” confided Bengal, with a fresh burst of giggles, “that Pecky shaves?”

Then, as Agony gave a little incredulous exclamation, she hastened on.  “Really she does, her whole chin, with a razor, every morning.  I found it out a couple of days ago.  I guess she’d have a regular beard if she didn’t.  You’ve noticed how kind of hairy her chin is, haven’t you?  I found a little safety razor among her things one day—­”

“Bengal!  You weren’t rummaging among her things, were you?”

“No, of course not.  But once when we were all up in the bungalow she found that she’d forgotten her watch, and sent me back to get it out of her bathrobe pocket, and there was a little safety razor in where the watch was.  I didn’t think anything about it then, but after that I noticed that she always went off by herself in the woods.  While the rest of us went for morning dip.  Yesterday I followed her and saw what she did.  She shaved her chin with that safety razor.  Oh, won’t it be great fun when I do that in the stunt?  Won’t she be hopping mad, though!” Bengal hopped up and down and chortled with anticipatory glee.

“Bengal!” said Agony firmly, “don’t you dare do anything like that?  Don’t you know that it’s terribly bad taste to make fun of people’s personal blemishes?”

“But she deserves it,” Bengal persisted, still chuckling.  “She’s such a prune.”

“That has nothing whatever to do with the matter,” Agony replied sternly.  “Do you want to ruin our stunt for us?  That’s what will happen if you do anything as ill-bred as that.  It would take away every chance we have of winning the prize.”

“Well, if you say I shouldn’t do it I won’t,” said Bengal rather sulkily.  “But wouldn’t it have been the best joke!” she added regretfully.

“Bengal,” Agony continued, realizing that even if Bengal could be suppressed as far as the stunt went, she would still have plenty of opportunity for making life miserable for Miss Peckham now that she had learned her embarrassing secret, “you won’t mention this to any of the other girls, will you?  You see, it must be very embarrassing for Miss Peckham to have to do that, and naturally she would feel highly uncomfortable if the camp found it out.  You see, you found it out by accident; she didn’t tell you of her own free will, so you have no right to tell it any further.  A girl with a nice sense of honor would never think of telling anything she found out in that way, when she knew it would cause embarrassment if told.  So you’ll give me your promise, won’t you, Bengal dear, that you will never mention this matter to anybody around camp?”