CHAPTER I.

OFF FOR JAPAN.


"The Motor Maids are off again," announced the West Haven Courier one
morning, as if every citizen in the gray old town on the coast was not
already well aware of it.

The four famous travelers and their chaperone, Miss Helen Campbell, were
always off somewhere in the red motor car. If they were not making a
voyage to England with the "Comet" stored in the hold of the ship for
immediate use on arrival, or taking perilous journeys across the American
continent in the faithful car, they were making excursions to Shell
Island or Seven League Island, or down the coast to the Sailors' Inn.

"Where is it to be this time, Nancy-Bell?" Captain Brown had asked his
daughter when she had broken the news to him that she must give up the
spring term at High School for something far more educational than mere
books. Perhaps the sea captain had intended to be stern when he asked
that question; but Nancy had her own peculiar methods of dispelling
sternness. A beaming anticipatory smile irradiated her face and
scattered parental disapproval even as the warm rays of the sun scatter
the morning mists.

"Japan!" she announced solemnly; and Captain Brown, who himself had made