e
matter. Affairs might have gone more smoothly after this if we four had
been able to hold together. Unfortunately, Jimmy won Marriot over, and
next day there was a row all round, which resulted in our division into
five parties.

One day Pettigrew visited us. He brought his Gladstone bag with him, but
did not stay over night. He was glad to go; for at first none of us, I
am afraid, was very civil to him, though we afterward thawed a little.
He returned to London and told every one how he found us. I admit we
were not prepared to receive company. The house-boat consisted of five
apartments--a saloon, three bedrooms, and a kitchen. When he boarded us
we were distributed as follows: I sat smoking in the saloon, Marriot sat
smoking in the first bedroom, Gilray in the second, Jimmy in the third,
and Scrymgeour in the kitchen. The boy did not keep Scrymgeour company.
He had been ordered on deck, where he sat with his legs crossed, the
picture of misery because he had no coals to break. A few days after
Pettigrew's visit we followed him to London, leaving Scrymgeour behind,
where we soon became friendly again.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVI.

THE ARCADIA MIXTURE AGAIN.

[Illustration]

One day, some weeks after we left Scrymgeour's house-boat, I was
alone in my rooms, very busy smoking, when William John entered with
a telegram. It was from Scrymgeour, and said, "You have got me into
a dreadful mess. Come down here first train."

Wondering what mess I could have got Scrymgeour into, I good-naturedly
obeyed his summons, and soon I was smoking placidly on the deck of the
house-boat, while Scrymgeour, sullen and nervous, tramped back and
forward. I saw quickly that the only tobacco had something to do with
his troubles, for he began by announcing that one evening soon after
we left him he found that we had smoked all his Arcadia. He would have
dispatched the boy to London for it, but the boy had been all day in the
village buying a loaf, and would not be back for hours. Cookham cigars
Scrymgeour could not smoke; cigarettes he only endured if made from the
Arcadia.

At Cookham he could only get tobacco that made him uncomfortable. Having
recently begun to use a new pouch, he searched his pockets in vain for
odd shreds of the Mixture to which he had so contemptibly become a
slave. In a very bad temper he took to his dingy, vowing for a little
while that he would violently break the chains that bound him to one
t