. "Why, when you come to think of it, it's
unbelievable. I sometimes half expect to waken up and find it is all a
dream. Just fancy. We left England with a freight of 21,000 tons. The
day is not long past when I thought a ship of 1000 tons a big one; what
a mite that is to our Leviathan, as she used to be called. We had 5512
tons of cable, 3824 tons of fuel, 6499 tons of coal and electric
apparatus and appliances when we started; the whole concern, ship
included, being valued at somewhere about two millions sterling. It may
increase your idea of the size and needs of our little household when I
tell you that the average quantity of coal burned on the voyage out has
been 200 tons a day."

"It's a positive romance in facts and figures," said Sam.

"A great reality, you should have said," remarked Robin.

And so, romancing on this reality of facts and figures in many a
matter-of-fact statement and figurative rejoinder, they sat there among
the great cranks, and valves, and pistons, and levers, until the
declining day warned them that it was time to go ashore.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

SHOWS THE DREADFUL DEPRAVITY OF MAN, AND THE AMAZING EFFECTS OF
ELECTRICAL TREATMENT ON MAN AND BEAST.

Meanwhile Stumps went back to the hotel to brood over his misfortunes,
and hatch out the plan which his rather unfertile brain had devised.

Seated on a chair, with his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands,
and his nails between his teeth, he stared at a corner of the room,
nibbled and meditated. There was nothing peculiar about the corner of
the room at which he stared, save that there stood in it a portmanteau
which Sam had bought the day before, and in which were locked his and
Robin's bags of treasure.

"If I could only manage to get away by rail to--to--anywhere, I'd do
it," he muttered.

Almost simultaneously he leaped from his chair, reddened, and went to
look-out at the window, for some one had tapped at the door.

"Come in," he said with some hesitation.

"Gen'l'man wants you, sir," said a waiter, ushering in the identical
captain who had stopped Stumps on the street that day.

"Excuse me, young man," he said, taking a chair without invitation, "I
saw you enter this hotel, and followed you."

"Well, and what business had you to follow me?" demanded Stumps, feeling
uneasy.

"Oh, none--none at all, on'y I find I must sail this afternoon, an' I've
took a fancy to you, an' hope you've made up your mind t