it would be
difficult to slip past without being followed. He had perhaps seen
"Mascotte" on entering the canal (as it appeared that he had come in
only toward evening), but he had not suspected the innocent-looking
little creature, with her fat chaperon, "Waterspin," of having an alias.
If, however, a motor-boat attempted to glide past his in the night, he
would give chase, and see us on board "Mascotte." For this reason I was
delighted to hear that he was at a hotel for the night, and I advised
him to go there at once, to await my coming.

"How long shall you be?" he asked impatiently.

I assured him that all I had to do might keep me an hour; but I saved a
few tattered rags of conscience by evading a verbal promise to call on
him at the end of that hour. So much he took for granted; and, as the
things I _really_ had to do were to get the whole party on to "Mascotte"
and out of the capital of Friesland, I left my uncle-in-law without much
ceremony.

Nothing could have been neater than the way we gave him the slip, flying
by his deserted motor-boat without a qualm, and, I hoped, beyond his
reach at the same time.

Never, during the whole course of the trip, had I been as glad to arrive
at a place as I was to arrive at Groningen.

We ought, according to the program of our itinerary mapped out by Alb,
to have reached the big town in the afternoon instead of morning, and to
have spent the time till evening in seeing sights. But all was changed
now. Luckily Alb (who is an uncomfortable stickler for truth at all
costs) could conscientiously inform the girls that Groningen's principal
attractions might be seen in a couple of hours.

We tore round the place in the fastest cab to be got, I having bribed
the driver not to spare his horse; yet it was at Alb the girls looked
reproachfully, when they were allowed but three minutes in the largest
market-place of Holland, five for St. Martin's Church and the organ
praised by diplomatic Erasmus, two to search vainly for diamond-gleaming
glass tiles on houses which Amici admired forty years ago; and another
grudging two for a gallop through the Noorden Plantation, of which the
rich town is proud. There must be something about my appearance which
convinces people that, whatever evil is afoot, I, at least, am innocent.
I have noticed this since boyhood, the phenomenon being most conspicuous
when I was least deserving; whereas, with Alb, it is the other way
round. His darkly hand