ed office-holder. If you can't get a little more life into
these expeditions of ours we'll pack up and head for home."

She smiled, patted his shoulder and promised to improve. But he appeared
to be in a gloomy mood.

"I believe we ought to go, anyhow," he went on. "In my opinion this war
is going to spread like a prairie fire. The Kaiser got back to Berlin
yesterday. He'll sign the mobilization orders to-day as sure as fate.
For the past week, on the Berlin Bourse, Canadian Pacific stock has been
dropping. That means they expect England to come in."

He gazed darkly into the future. It may seem that, for an American
statesman, he had an unusual grasp of European politics. This is easily
explained by the fact that he had been talking with the bootblack at the
Carlton Hotel.

"Yes," he said with sudden decision, "I'll go down to the steamship
offices early Monday morning."

CHAPTER V

His daughter heard these words with a sinking heart. She had a most
unhappy picture of herself boarding a ship and sailing out of Liverpool
or Southampton, leaving the mystery that so engrossed her thoughts
forever unsolved. Wisely she diverted her father's thoughts toward
the question of food. She had heard, she said, that Simpson's, in the
Strand, was an excellent place to dine. They would go there, and walk.
She suggested a short detour that would carry them through Adelphi
Terrace. It seemed she had always wanted to see Adelphi Terrace.

As they passed through that silent Street she sought to guess, from an
inspection of the grim forbidding house fronts, back of which lay the
lovely garden, the romantic mystery. But the houses were so very much
like one another. Before one of them, she noted, a taxi waited.

After dinner her father pleaded for a music-hall as against what he
called "some highfaluting, teacup English play." He won. Late that
night, as they rode back to the Carlton, special editions were being
proclaimed in the streets. Germany was mobilizing!

The girl from Texas retired, wondering what epistolary surprise the
morning would bring forth. It brought forth this:

DEAR DAUGHTER OF THE SENATE: Or is it Congress? I could not quite
decide. But surely in one or the other of those august bodies your
father sits when he is not at home in Texas or viewing Europe through
his daughter's eyes. One look at him and I had gathered that.

But Washington is far from London, isn't it? And it is London that
interests us most