e bottom of the sea for so many
centuries that he is quite covered with seaweed and barnacles. But
they are very sorry for me, because I only came here yesterday. They
arrive almost every day to instruct me in the path in which I should
go, and to eat my cakes by the dozen. They don't have any dinner the
days they come here for tea. Mrs. Beebee is the Queen of the Goonies."

"Who are the Goonies?" asked Geoffrey.

"The rest of the old tortoises. They are missionaries and professors
and their wives and daughters. The sons, of course, run away and go to
the bad. There are quite a lot of the Goonies, and I see much more of
them than I do of the _geishas_ and the _samurais_ and the _harakiris_
and all the Eastern things, which Gwendolen will talk about when she
gets home. She is going to write a book, poor girl. There's nothing
else to do in this country except to write about what is not here.
It's very easy, you know. You copy it all out of some one else's book,
only you illustrate it with your own snapshots. The publishers say
that there is a small but steady demand, chiefly for circulating
libraries in America. You see, I have been approached already on the
subject, and I have not been here many months. So you've seen Reggie
Forsyth already, he tells me. What do you think of him?"

"Much the same as usual; he seemed rather bored."

Lady Cynthia had led her guest away from the fireside, where Gwendolen
Cairns was burbling to Asako.

Geoffrey could feel the searchlight of her judicial eye upon him, and
a sensation like the pause when a great man enters a room. Something
essential was going to invade the commonplace talk.

"Captain Barrington, your coming here just now is most providential.
Reggie Forsyth is not bored at all, far from it."

"I thought he would like the country," said Geoffrey guardedly.

"He doesn't like the country. Why should he? But he likes somebody in
the country. Now do you understand?"

"Yes," agreed Geoffrey, "he showed me the photograph of a half
Japanese girl. He said that she was his inspiration for local colour."

"Exactly, and she's turning his brain yellow," snapped Lady Cynthia,
forgetting, as everybody else did, including Geoffrey himself,
that the same criticism might apply to Asako. However, Geoffrey was
becoming more sensitive of late. He blushed a little and fidgeted, but
he answered,--

"Reggie has always been easily inflammable."

"Oh, in England, perhaps, it's good for a