e white veil of snow gradually withdrew.

All that night I dreamed of the white snow slowly vanishing from the
white hat.

Next morning the snow had vanished, and the white hat must have been
obvious to the wayfaring man though a fool.

Next morning, and the next, and the next, found me still in London.

Why?

_My mother was shopping!_

Oh, the awful torture of having a gay mother shopping the solemn hours
away, when each instant drew her son nearer to the doom of an accessory
after the fact!

My mother did not object to travel, but she _did_ like to have her
little comforts about her.

She occupied herself in purchasing--

A water-bed.

A _boule_, or hot-water bottle.

A portable stove.

A travelling kitchen-range.

A medicine chest.

A complete set of Ollendorff.

Ten thousand pots of Dundee marmalade. And such other articles as she
deemed essential to her comfort and safety during the expedition. In
vain I urged that our motto was _Rescue and Retire_, and that such
elaborate preparations might prevent our retiring from our native shore,
and therefore make rescue exceedingly problematical.

My Tory mother only answered by quoting the example of Lord Wolseley and
the Nile Expedition.

'How long did _they_ tarry among the pots--the marmalade pots?' said
my mother. 'Did _they_ start before every mess had its proper share
of extra teaspoons in case of accident, and a double supply of patent
respirators for the drummer-boys, and of snow-shoes for the Canadian
boatmen in case the climate proved uncertain?'

My mother's historical knowledge, and the unique example of provident
and exhaustive equipment which she cited, reduced me to silence, but did
not diminish my anxiety. The delay made me nervous, excited, and chippy.

To-morrow morning we were to start.

To-morrow morning was too late.

With an effort I opened the morning paper--the _Morning Post_, as it
happened--and ran hastily up and down the columns, active exercise
having been recommended to me. What cared I for politics, foreign news,
or even the sportive intelligence? All I sought for was a paragraph
headed 'Horrible Disclosures,' or, 'Awful Death of a Baronet.' I ran up
and down the columns in vain.

No such item of news met my eye. Joyously I rose to go, when my eye fell
on the Standard.

Mechanically I opened it.

Those words were written (or so they seemed to me to be written) in
letters of fire, though the admirable press at S