ing if the Flapper had seen the
Prince.

"You bet," said the Flapper. "He's a dandy boy. He's a plush."

His Royal Highness became many things in his travels across America,
but I think it ought to go down in history that at St. John's,
Newfoundland, he became a "plush."

Newfoundland also introduced another Western phenomenon. It presented
us to the race of false prophets whom we were to see go down in
confusion all the way from St. John's to Victoria and back again to New
York.

Members of this race were plentiful in St. John's. As we spent our
days before the Prince's arrival picking up facts and examining the
many beautiful arches of triumph that were being put up in the town, we
were warned not to expect too much from Newfoundland. St. John's had
not its bump of enthusiasm largely developed, we were told; its people
were resolutely dour and we must not be disappointed if the Prince's
reception lacked warmth. In all probability the weather would conform
to the general habit and be foggy.

Here, as elsewhere, the prophets were confounded. St. John's proved
second to none in the warmth of its affectionate greeting--that
splendid spontaneous welcome which the whole West gave to the Prince
upset all preconceived notions, swept away all sense of set ceremonial
and made the tour from the beginning to the end the most happy progress
of a sympathetic and responsive youth through a continent of intimate
personal friends.

II

The _Dauntless_ went out from St. John's on Sunday, August 10, to
rendezvous with _Renown_ and _Dragon_, and the three great modern
warships came together on a glorious Western evening.

There was a touch of drama in the meeting. In the marvellous clear air
of gold and blue that only the American Continent can show, we picked
up _Renown_ at a point when she was entering a long avenue of icebergs.
There were eleven of these splendid white fellows in view on the
skyline when we turned to lead the great battleship back to the
anchorage in Conception Bay, north of St. John's, and as the ships
followed us it was as though the Prince had entered a processional way
set with great pylons arranged deliberately to mark the last phase of
his route to the Continent of the West.

Some of these bergs were as large, as massive and as pinnacled as
cathedrals, some were humped mounds that lifted sullenly from the
radiant sea, some were treacherous little crags circled by rings of
detached floes--t