I reflected, as I closed my eyes, that Arthur was a regular reader of the Herald.

CHAPTER II.

We met poppa on the Germanic gangway, his hat on the back of his head and one finger in each of his waistcoat pockets, an attitude which, with him, always betokens concern.  The vessel was at that stage of departure when the people who have been turned off are feeling injured that it should have been done so soon, and apparently only the weight of poppa’s personality on its New York end kept the gangway out.  As we drove up he appeared to lift his little finger and three dishevelled navigators darted upon the cab.  They and we and our trunks swept up the gangway together, which immediately closed behind us, under the direction of an extremely irritated looking Chief Officer.  We reunited as a family as well as we could in connection with uncoiled ropes and ship discipline.  Then poppa, with his watch in his hand, exclaimed reproachfully, well in hearing of the Chief Officer, “I gave you ten minutes and you had ten minutes.  You stopped at Huyler’s for candy, I’ll lay my last depreciated dollar on it.”

My other parent looked guiltily at some oblong boxes tied up in white paper with narrow red ribbon, which, innocently enough I consider, enhance the value of life to us both.  But she ignored the charge—­momma hates arguments.

“Dear me!” she said, as the space widened between us and the docks.  “So we are all going to Europe together this morning!  I can hardly realise it.  Farewell America!  How interesting life is.”

“Yes,” replied poppa.  “And now I guess I’d better show you your cabins before it gets any more interesting.”

We had a calm evening, though nothing would induce momma to think so, and at ten o’clock Senator J.P.  Wick and I were still pacing the deck talking business.  The moon rose, and threw Arthur’s shadow across our conversation, but we looked at it with precision and it moved away.  That is one of poppa’s most comforting characteristics, he would as soon open his bosom to a shot-gun as to a confidence.  He asked for details through the telephone merely for bravado.  As a matter of fact, if I had begun to send them he would have rung off the connection and said it was an accident.  We dipped into politics, and I told the Senator that while I considered his speech on the Silver Compromise a credit to the family on the whole, I thought he had let himself out somewhat unnecessarily at the expense of the British nation.

“We are always twisting a tail,” I said reproachfully, “that does nothing but wag at us.”