ork with the Pencil and said they could
either hurry on or else hie back to the Home Town and begin Life all
over again.

Three weeks after saying good-bye to Griddle Cakes they were in Naples,
which they had seen pictured on so many Calendars.

Looking back across the Centuries they recalled the Clerks standing in
the Doorways and the friends of the Progressive Euchre Club. It was
sweet to remember that the world was not made up entirely of cadging
Head Waiters.

Once in a while they would venture from the Hotel to run footraces with
the yelping Lazzaroni or try to look at Vesuve without paying seven or
eight members of the Camorra for the Privilege.

After being chased back into the Hotel, they would sit down and address
Post-Cards by the Hour, telling how much they were enjoying the stay in
Napoli, home of Song and Laughter.

Their only chance of catching even on the Imperial Suite at $9 a Day
was to make the Folks back at the Whistling Post think they were
playing Guitars and dancing the Tarantella, whatever that is.

Next we see them in Egypt, still addressing Post-Cards, and offering
anything within Reason for a good Cup of Coffee.

Somehow, sitting in the dusky Tombs didn't seem to help their Nostalgia.
Not that they would own up to being Home-Sick. No, indeed! They kept
writing back that they enjoyed every Minute spent among the Cemeteries
and Ruins, or sailing up the Nile, and Edwin was holding up
wonderfully, for an Invalid.

Only, when either of them spoke of the Children, or Corned-Beef Hash,
or the Canary, a long Silence would ensue, and then the Nervous Wreck
would cheer her by computing that they would be in God's Country within
four months, if they escaped Shipwreck, Sunstroke, and Bubonic Plague.

While parboiling themselves down the Red Sea it began to soak in on
them that, east of Suez, the Yank has about as much standing as the Ten
Commandments.

They could have endured sleeping in a Trough and bathing with a damp
Towel and eating Food kept over from the year before, if their Fellow
Voyagers had made a slight fuss over them or evinced some interest in
the wonders of North America.

The Congressman at home had assured them, on numerous occasions, that
Columbia was the Jim of the Ocean and the most upholstered portion of
the entire Foot-Stool.

Consequently, it was somewhat disconcerting to meet British subjects
who never had heard of Quincy, Illinois, and who moved their Deck
Chairs