with almost
unnatural interest to Jack's talk, before starting, of the principal
"features" to be sought out at our first night's stopping place.

[Illustration: map]*

Were it not for Caspian's feet, I'm afraid dear Pat wouldn't have cared
a whalebone to go and stare at the harbour because New London had been a
big whaling centre. She wouldn't have bothered with John Winthrop's
historic mill, which has never been out of use from his day to ours. She
wouldn't have rushed from Nathan Hale's schoolhouse to gape at the
Perkins Mansion, where Washington and Lafayette stayed; or if she had
she would have consented to go in the car. As it was, however, that
girl's energy was frenzied, and her exertions were rewarded at last by
the dropping out of Caspian from her train. He limped back to the
hotel, furious, leaving Pat with me and Jack, Peter, Tom, Dick, and
Harry.

Pat was a new person when she had shed him, and we ended up our
excursion with a wild, weird "movie." It _was_ fun! I never laughed so
much; and Peter Storm was like a boy. A cloud fell upon us, however, and
damped our spirits as we returned to the hotel to dress for dinner. We
knew that Caspian would be in the sulks, and that somehow Pat would be
made to pay for her pleasure.

There he sat in the big hall, where he could see us as we filed guiltily
in, very late. As a protest, he was already dressed, and looked like one
of those neat little sugar men with yellow hair, red lips, and black
coat that you see on lower middle-class wedding cakes. He held a book in
his hand, but had been talking, or trying to talk, to a big, dark,
handsome man who lolled in a neighbouring chair. In a flashing glance we
gained the impression that the big fellow was bored by Caspian and had
sought refuge from him behind a newspaper. But at sight of us Caspian
hastily stiffened into an attitude of martyred waiting, and at the same
instant the tall man jumped up with a queer exclamation. His paper
dropped. He looked as if he saw a ghost, and--that ghost was Peter
Storm!

"Mon Dieu!" or words to that effect I saw, rather than heard, him say.
Then Peter got to him in two or three gigantic strides, as if in
seven-leagued boots, and thrust his face close to that other astonished
face. What Peter said I could not catch, because he spoke in a whisper
and very fast. What the big man (bigger than Peter) said in return could
not have been caught by the ear of a fox, for he said nothing at
al