Adelaide. While of course the Australians are crazy about cricket, like
all Englishmen, they're keen for every kind of athletic sport, and we're
sure of big crowds there. After that we sail for Ceylon and from there to
Egypt."

"I'd like to see Egypt better than any other place," broke in Clara. "I've
always been crazy to go there."

"It's full of curiosities," remarked Jim. "There's the Sphinx, for
instance--a woman who hasn't said a word for five thousand years."

Clara flashed a withering glance at him, under which he wilted.

"Don't mix your Greek fable and your Egyptian facts, Jim," chuckled Joe.

"Huh?"

"Fact. Since this trip's been in the wind, I've been reading up. Those
Egyptian sphinxes--those that haven't a ram's or a hawk's head--have a
man's, not a woman's, head."

"That's why they've been able to keep still so long, then!" exclaimed
Jim.

"You mean thing!" cried Mabel.

"Don't lay that up against me," he begged, penitently, "and I'll send you
back a little crocodile from the Nile."

"Oh, the horrid thing!" cried Clara with a shudder.

"I'm doing the best I can," said Jim, plaintively. "I can't send you one
of the pyramids."

"That's the last we'll see of Africa," went on Joe. "After that, we set
sail for Italy and land at Naples. Then we work our way up through Rome,
Florence, Milan, Monte Carlo, Marseilles, Paris and London. We'll stay
about a month in Great Britain, visiting Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin.
Then we'll make tracks for home, and maybe we won't be glad to get here!"

The vision conjured up by this array of famous cities offered such scope
for endless surmise and speculation that they were surprised at the flight
of time when Mrs. Matson smilingly summoned them to supper.

Of course, Joe sat beside Mabel and Jim beside Clara. If, in the course of
the evening meal, Joe's hand and Mabel's met beneath the table, it was
purely by accident. Jim, on his side would cheerfully have risked such an
accident, but had no such luck.

Joe was happy, supremely happy in the presence by his side of the dearest
girl in all the world. Yet there was a queer little ache at his heart
because of the apparent indifference with which Mabel had viewed their
coming separation.

"You haven't said once," he said to her in a low tone, with a touch of
tender reproach, "that you were sorry I was going."

"Why should I," answered Mabel, demurely, "since I am going with you?"

CHAPTER VII

THE G