, now," said little
Beechy to big Beechy. "No more vacillating. He'll come straight to
business." And promising myself some fun, I got up from the bench so
cautiously that the poor river was cheated of a victim. "Now I _must_ go
in," I exclaimed. "_Good_-bye, Prince. Let me see; what are we to each
other?"

"Confidants," he informed me. "You are to come to me with every
difficulty. But one more word before we part, dear child. Be on your
guard, and warn your Mamma to be on hers, with those two adventurers.
Perhaps, also, you had better warn Miss Destrey. Who knows how
unscrupulous the pair might be? And unfortunately, owing to the
regrettable arrangements at present existing, I cannot always be at hand
to watch over you all."

"Owing a little to your automobile too, maybe," said I. "By the way,
what is its state of health?"

"There has been no room for the automobile in my thoughts," said the
Prince, with a cooled-down step-fatherly smile. "But I have no doubt it
will be in good marching order by the time it is wanted, as my chauffeur
was to rise at four, knock up a mechanic at some shop in the village,
and make the new change-speed lever which was broken yesterday. If you
are determined to leave me so soon, I will console myself by finding
Joseph and seeing how he is getting on."

We walked together towards the house, which had opened several of its
green eyelids now, and at the mouth of a sort of stucco tunnel which led
to the door there was Joseph himself--a piteous, dishevelled Joseph,
looking as if birds had built nests on him and spiders had woven webs
round him for years.

"Well," exclaimed the Prince with the air of one warding off a blow.
"What has happened? Have you burnt my automobile, or are you always like
this when you get up early?"

"I am not an incendiary, Your Highness," said Joseph, in his precise
French, which it's easy to understand, because when he wishes to be
dignified he speaks slowly. "I do not know what I am like, unless it is
a wreck, in which case I resemble your automobile. As you left her last
night, so she is now, and so she is likely to remain, unless the
gentlemen of the other car will have the beneficence to pull her up a
still further and more violent hill to the village of Tenda. There finds
himself the only mechanic within fifty miles."

"I engaged _you_ as a mechanic!" cried the Prince.

"But not as a workshop, Your Highness. That I am not and shall not be
this side of P