need? Your tickets and
your letters of credit and all? Sure you have money enough to carry you
across comfortably?"

"Yes, and more than enough, even on the 'Plutonia.'"

"Well, all right, then. When you reach London go to our English
branch--you have the address, Camford Street, just off the Strand--and
whatever help you may need they'll give you. I've cabled them
instructions. Think you can get down to the ship all right?"

I laughed. "I think it fairly possible," I said. "If I lose my way, or
Hephzy is kidnapped, I'll speak to the police or telephone you."

"The latter would be safer and much less expensive. Well, good-by,
Kent. Remember now, you're going for a good time and you're to forget
literature. Write often and keep in touch with me. Good-by, Miss Cahoon.
Take care of this--er--clam of ours, won't you. Don't let anyone eat him
on the half-shell, or anything like that."

Hephzy smiled. "They'd have to eat me first," she said, "and I'm pretty
old and tough. I'll look after him, Mr. Campbell, don't you worry."

"I don't. Good luck to you both--and good-by."

A final handshake and he was gone. Hephzy looked after him.

"There!" she exclaimed; "I really begin to believe I'm goin'. Somehow
I feel as if the last rope had been cast off. We've got to depend on
ourselves now, Hosy, dear. Mercy! how silly I am talkin'. A body would
think I was homesick before I started."

I did not answer, for I WAS homesick. We dined together at the hotel.
There remained three long hours before it would be time for us to take
the cab for the 'Plutonia's' wharf. I suggested another theater, but
Hephzy, to my surprise, declined the invitation.

"If you don't mind, Hosy," she said, "I guess I'd rather stay right here
in the room. I--I feel sort of solemn and as if I wanted to sit still
and think. Perhaps it's just as well. After waitin' eleven years to go
to one theater, maybe two in the same day would be more than I could
stand."

So we sat together in the room at the hotel--sat and thought. The
minutes dragged by. Outside beneath the windows, New York blazed and
roared. I looked down at the hurrying little black manikins on the
sidewalks, each, apparently, bound somewhere on business or pleasure of
its own, and I wondered vaguely what that business or pleasure might
be and why they hurried so. There were many single ones, of course,
and occasionally groups of three or four, but couples were the most
numerous. Husbands and