Also they had thought that it would be nice for the travellers to be met at
the terminus, especially as Miss Ingate had been very particularly
recommended to Miss Thompkins by a whole group of people in London. It was
Miss Thompkins who had supplied the address of reliable furnished rooms,
and she and Nick would personally introduce the ladies to their landlady,
who was a sweet creature.

Tommy and Nick and Miss Ingate were at once on terms of cordial
informality; but the Americans seemed to be a little diffident before the
companion. Their voices, at the introduction, had reinforced the surprise
of their first glances. "Oh! _Mrs._ Moncreiff!" The slightest insistence,
no more, on the "Mrs."! Nothing said, but evidently they had expected
somebody else!

Then there was the boy, whom they called Musa. He was dark, slim, with
timorous great eyes, and attired in red as a devil beneath his student's
cloak. He apologised slowly in English for not being able to speak English.
He said he was very French, and Tommy and Nick smiled, and he smiled back
at them rather wistfully. When Tommy and Nick had spoken with the
chauffeurs in French he interpreted their remarks. There were two
motor-taxis, one for the luggage.

Miss Thompkins accompanied the luggage; she insisted on doing so. She could
tell sinister tales of Paris cabmen, and she even delayed the departure in
order to explain that once in the suburbs and in the pre-taxi days a cabman
had threatened to drive her and himself into the Seine unless she would be
his bride, and she saved herself by promising to be his bride and telling
him that she lived in the Avenue de l'Opéra; as soon as the cab reached a
populous thoroughfare she opened the cab door and squealed and was rescued;