In this frame of mind we floated over to England and had a fortnight of
"the season" in London. But this soon palled on us, and we fell into the
idle mood of waiting for something to turn up.

One Sunday morning Bee and Mrs. Jimmie and I were sitting at a little
table near the entrance to the Cecil Hotel, when Jimmie came out of a
side door and sat down in front of us, leaning his elbows on the table
and grinning at us in a suspicious silence. We all waited for him to
begin, but he simply sat and smoked and grinned.

"Well! Well!" I said, impatiently, "What now?"

You would know that Jimmie was an American by the way he smokes. He
simply eats up cigars, inhales them, chews them. The end of his cigar
blazes like a danger signal and breathes like an engine. He can hold his
hands and feet still, but his nervousness crops out in his smoking.
Finally, exasperated by his continued silence, Bee said, severely:

"Jimmie, have you anything up your sleeve? If so, speak out!"

"Well!" said Jimmie, brushing the cigar ashes off his wife's skirt, "I
thought I'd take you all out to Henley this morning to look at the
house-boat."

"House-boat!" shrieked Bee and I in a whisper, clutching Jimmie by the
sleeve and lapel of his coat and giving him an ecstatic shake.

"Are we going to have a house-boat?" asked Bee.

"We!" said Jimmie. "_I_ am going to have a house-boat, and I am going to