stined to befall me in the South. Small
wonder that I took no thought of whither I was going.

Presently, having reached the wall at the other side of the great
vaulted chamber, we stopped.

"Which train, boss?" asked the porter who had meekly followed.

Train? I had forgotten about trains. The mention of the subject
distracted my attention for the moment from the _Loreleien_, stirred my
drugged sense of duty, and reminded me that I had trunks to check.

My suggestion that I leave them briefly for this purpose was lightly
brushed aside.

"Oh, no!" they cried. "We shall go with you."

I gave in at once--one always does with them--and inquired of the porter
the location of the baggage room. He looked somewhat fatigued as he
replied:

"It's away back there where we come from, boss."

It was a long walk; in a garden, with no train to catch, it would have
been delightful.

"Got your tickets?" suggested the porter as we passed the row of grilled
windows. He had evidently concluded that I was irresponsible.

As I had them, we continued on our way, and presently achieved the
baggage room, where they stood talking and laughing, telling me of the
morning's shopping expedition--hat-hunting, they called it--in the
rain. I fancy that we might have been there yet had not a baggageman,
perhaps divining that I had become a little bit distrait and that I had
business to transact, rapped smartly on the iron counter with his punch
and demanded:

"Baggage checked?"

Turning, not without reluctance, from a pair of violet eyes and a pair
of the most mysterious gray, I began to fumble in my pockets for the
claim checks.

"How long shall you stay in Baltimore?" asked the girl with the gray
eyes.

"Yes, indeed!" I answered, still searching for the checks.

"That doesn't make sense," remarked the blue-eyed girl as I found the
checks and handed them to the baggageman. "She asked how long you'd stay
in Baltimore, and you said: 'Yes, indeed.'"

"About a week I meant to say."

"Oh, I don't believe a week will be enough," said Gray-eyes.

"We can't stay longer," I declared. "We must keep pushing on. There are
so many places in the South to see."

"My sister has just been there, and she--"

"Where to?" demanded the insistent baggageman.

"Why, Baltimore, of course," I said. Had he paid attention to our
conversation he might have known.

"You were saying," reminded Violet-eyes, "that your sister--?"

"She just came home f