in our own particular planet,
I'm afraid you'll find it just a trifle difficult for Sir Charles
Vandrift to hide his light under a bushel."

"Oh, I'll manage it," Charles answered. "What's the good of being
a millionaire, I should like to know, if you're always obliged to
'behave as sich'? I shall travel incog. I'm dog-tired of being
dogged by these endless impostors."

And, indeed, we had passed through a most painful winter. Colonel
Clay had stopped away for some months, it is true, and for my own
part, I will confess, since it wasn't _my_ place to pay the piper, I
rather missed the wonted excitement than otherwise. But Charles had
grown horribly and morbidly suspicious. He carried out his principle
of "distrusting everybody and disbelieving everything," till life
was a burden to him. He spotted impossible Colonel Clays under a
thousand disguises; he was quite convinced he had frightened his
enemy away at least a dozen times over, beneath the varying garb
of a fat club waiter, a tall policeman, a washerwoman's boy, a
solicitor's clerk, the Bank of England beadle, and the collector
of water-rates. He saw him as constantly, and in as changeful forms,
as mediaeval saints used to see the devil. Amelia and I really
began to fear for the stability of that splendid intellect; we
foresaw that unless the Colonel Clay nuisance could be abated
somehow, Charles might sink by degrees to the mental level of a
common or ordinary Stock-Exchange plunger.

So, when my brother-in-law announced his intention of going away
incog. to parts unknown, on the succeeding Saturday, Amelia and
I felt a flush of relief from long-continued tension. Especially
Amelia--who was _not_ going with him.

"For rest and quiet," he said to us at breakfast, laying down the
Morning Post, "give _me_ the deck of an Atlantic liner! No letters;
no telegrams. No stocks; no shares. No Times; no Saturday. I'm sick
of these papers!"

"The World is too much with us," I assented cheerfully. I regret
to say, nobody appreciated the point of my quotation.

Charles took infinite pains, I must admit, to ensure perfect
secrecy. He made me write and secure the best state-rooms--main
deck, amidships--under my own name, without mentioning his, in
the Etruria, for New York, on her very next voyage. He spoke of
his destination to nobody but Amelia; and Amelia warned Cesarine,
under pains and penalties, on no account to betray it to the other
servants. Further to secure h