'No wonder he was disappointed at seeing us--he was expecting them!' said
Janet, smiling a little.

'They are sure to come,' said Miss Goodwin.

Near us a couple of yachtsmen were conversing.

'Oh, he'll be back in a day or two,' one said. 'When you 've once tasted
that old boy, you can't do without him. I remember when I was a
youngster--it was in Lady Betty Bolton's day; she married old Edbury, you
know, first wife--the Magnificent was then in his prime. He spent his
money in a week: so he hired an eighty-ton schooner; he laid violent
hands on a Jew, bagged him, lugged him on board, and sailed away.'

'What the deuce did he want with a Jew?' cried the other.

'Oh, the Jew supplied cheques for a three months' cruise in the
Mediterranean, and came home, I heard, very good friends with his pirate.
That's only one of dozens.'

The unconscious slaughterers laughed.

'On another occasion'--I heard it said by the first speaker, as they
swung round to parade the pier, and passed on narrating.

'Not an hotel, if it is possible to avoid it,' my aunt Dorothy, with
heightened colour, urged Miss Goodwin. They talked together.

'Grandada is coming to you, Harry,' Janet said. 'He has business in