ucerne, he showed a lively interest in the forthcoming
trip.

"I suppose," said he, when we had caught our first sight of Pilatus
(seen, as one might say, on his back premises), "I suppose that
anywhere in Switzerland, there ought to be no trouble about finding a
good pack-mule. Somehow one thinks of Switzerland and mules together,
just as one does of bacon and eggs, or nuts and raisins, and yet, I
can't recall ever having come across any mules in Lucerne, can you,
Monty?"

"No," I admitted, "but there were probably so many that one didn't
notice them--like flies, you know."

"Of course, the air of Switzerland is dark with mules and donkeys,"
said Molly, who always seemed quick to resent any obstacles thrown
between me and my mule. "One sees them in picture books. All that
Lord Lane will have to say is, 'Let there be mules,' and there will be
mules--strings of them. He will only have to pick and choose. The
thing will be to get a good one, and a nice, handsome, troubadour-sort
of man who can cook, and jodel, and sew, and put up tents, and keep
off murderers in mountain passes at night. It may take a day or two to
find exactly what is wanted."

"The best person in Switzerland to give Monty all the information he
needs," said Jack, evidently not wholly convinced, "is Herr Widmer,
who has an hotel high above Lucerne, on the Sonnenberg. He has another
in Mentone, and I've heard him tell how he has often come up from the
Riviera to Switzerland on horseback. He would be able to advise Monty
exactly how to go."

"Let's stop at his place on the Sonnenberg, then," said Molly, who
never took more than sixty seconds to make the most momentous
decisions, less important ones getting themselves arranged while
slow-minded English people drew breath.

Certainly, as we drove through the streets of Lucerne, we saw neither
mules nor donkeys, but Molly accounted for this by saying that no
doubt they were all at dinner. In any case, with the blue lake
a-glitter with silver sequins dropped from the gowns of those
sparkling White Ladies, the mountains; the shops gay and bright in the
sunshine, on one side the way, shadows lying cool and soft under the
long line of green trees on the other, who could take thought of
absent mules? Let them dine or die; it mattered not. Lucerne was
beautiful, the day divine.

When we were lunching on the balcony of the Winstons' private
sitting-room at the Sonnenberg, with mountains billowing round and