dy given one shrill intimation that she was
prepared to leave the harbour. Sydney and I were ready, with our
portmanteaux strapped and our caps on, but the Honourable John had not
yet appeared. We were impatient. Very important was it that we should
catch the mail out of Penzance that same evening, for the following
morning we were all due in London. Any delay in our return would be
taken from the holidays of the next batch, and we should never hear the
last of it if we were late, to say nothing of the unfairness of reducing
the well-earned rest of the next batch by our dilatoriness and lack of
consideration. We had taken the precaution to settle the hotel accounts,
because we knew the habits of the Honourable John, and we stood in the
hall with the thunder gathering upon our brows, and threatening to peal
forth in tones more loud than complimentary.

"If he isn't down in two minutes, Syd, I'm off," said I, pulling out my
watch, and nervously noting the jerky springs of the spidery second-hand
that seemed to be in a much greater hurry than usual.

"John!" bawled Syd up the stairway. "Do you hear? You'll miss the
steamer."

"What's the fellow doing?" I asked, with irritation, as I observed that
half a minute had passed.

"Waxing the ends of his ridiculous moustache," answered Syd; then,
turning again to the foot of the stairs, "John! We're going. Hurry up!"

A door opened on the landing, and a voice drawled, "I say, you chaps,
have you paid the bill?"

"Certainly," said I. "Come along. We've barely time to catch the
steamer. Didn't you hear the whistle?"

"I heard something a little while ago, a sort of an ear-piercing shriek
that startled me, and caused me to nick my chin with the razor. I shall
have to put a bit of flesh-coloured plaster over it. Was that the
whistle?" asked the Honourable John in the most tantalising, nonchalant
way, as if he had all the day before him.

We looked up the stairway, and there he was on the landing, in his
shirt-sleeves, slowly adjusting the ends of a salmon-coloured tie.

"The two minutes are up," said I, replacing my watch, and stooping for
my portmanteau. At that moment the whistle sounded again, and I hurried
away, followed by Syd, both of us muttering that the dawdler deserved to
be left, but none the less hoping in our hearts that he would be in
time.

The hotel was near the harbour, and we were soon aboard. On the bridge,
between the paddle-boxes, the captain stood wit