lock
where he married Lorna and John Ridd, or roams the Valley of the Rocks
to see the studious pilgrims at his pages. Stevenson haunts the
gloomy inlet where the Admiral Benbow stood and where old Pew came
tapping in the night. In the flesh I shall join their revels as an
equal comrade. _Clovelly_, however, although its lilt was pleasant to
the ear, was an insufficient title.

_Skull and Crossbones_ was too obvious, and my next choice was _The
Gibbet_. But there was the disadvantage of scaring the timid. Old
ladies would pass me by. It would check the sale of tickets. My
nephew, who is fourteen and not at all timid, was stout in its
defense. He pronounces it as if the _g_ were the hard kind that starts
off gurgle. _G_ibbet! He asked me if I had a hanging in the piece. If
so, he knew how the business could be managed without chance of
accident--an extra rope fastened to the belt behind. I told him that
it was none of his business how I ended up the pirates. I would hang
them or not, as I saw fit. He would have to pay his quarter like
anybody else and sit it through.

He suggested From _Dish-Pan to Matrimony_--obviously a jest. The sly
rogue laughs at me. I must confess, however, that he has given me some
of my best lines. "Villainy 's afoot!" for example, and "Sink me stern
up!" His peaceful school breeds a wealth of pungent English.

I was in despair. _Revenge!_ Would that have done? I see a maddened
father stand with smoking revolver above the body of a silky-whiskered
villain. "Doris," the panting parent cries, "the butcher boy knows
all and wants you for his bride." And down comes the happy curtain on
the lovers. _The Wreckers_ belongs to Stevenson. _The Pirates' Nest!_
It is too ornithological. The Natural History Museum might buy a copy
and think I had cheated them.

And then _Channel Lights_! It sends us sharply to the days of the
older melodrama--days when we exchanged a ten-cent piece for a gallery
seat and hissed the villain. Do you recall the breathless moment when
the heroine implored the villain to give her back her stolen child?
For answer the cruel fellow tied the darling to the buzz-saw. Or that
darker scene when he tossed the lady to the black waters of the
Thames, with the splash of a dipper up behind? Hurry, master hero!
Your horse's hoofs clatter in the wings. Gallop, Dobbin! A precious
life depends upon your speed. Our dangerous plot hangs by a single
thread.

It is quite a task to find a suf