l be worth while going merely to see what a _rivoluta splendens_
really is."

"We seem to be agreed," says Old Hickory, "and our company is made up.
That is, with two exceptions."

"Great Scott!" I whispers to Vee. "Two more freaks to come!"

"Listen," says Vee. "Auntie is saying something."

So she is, a whole mouthful.

"My niece, Verona, will accompany me, of course," she announces.

"Well, ain't that rough!" says I. "Now what's the sense in draggin'
you off down--"

"And I am obliged," breaks in Mr. Ellins, "to take with me, for purely
business reasons, my private secretary. Mrs. Hemmingway, isn't the
young man somewhere about the place?"

"Good night!" I gasps. "Me!"

"Well, I like that!" says Vee, givin' me a pinch.

"Take it back," says I. "If it's a case of us goin', that's different.
But what a bunch to go cruisin' with!"

And say, when I'm led out and introduced, I must have acted like I was
in a trance. I got it so sudden, you see, and so unexpected. Here I'd
been sittin' back all the while and knockin' this whole thing as a
squirrel-house expedition, besides passin' comments on the crowd; and
the next thing I know I'm counted in, with my name on the passenger
list.

That was two days ago; and while I've been movin' around lively enough
ever since, windin' things up at the office, hirin' a wireless operator
for Mr. Ellins, and layin' in a stock of Palm Beach suits and white
deck shoes, I ain't got over the jolt yet.

"Say, Mr. Robert," says I, when no one else is around, "how long can
anybody be seasick and live through it?"

"Oh, it is seldom fatal," says he. "The victims linger on and on."

"Hal-lup!" says I. "And I'll bet that roly-poly Mrs. Mumford comes
twice a day to coo to me. What did I ever get let in on this private
seccing for, anyway?"

CHAPTER XII

TORCHY HITS THE HIGH SEAS

Well, I got to take it all back--most of it, anyway. For, between you
and me, this bein' a seagoing private sec. ain't the worst that can
happen. Not so far as I've seen.

What I'm most chesty over, though, is the fact that I've been through
the wop and wiggle test without feedin' the fishes. You see, when the
good yacht _Agnes_ leaves Battery Park behind, slides down past Staten
Island and the Hook, and out into the Ambrose Channel, I'm feelin' sort
of low. I'd been lookin' our course up on the map, and, believe me,
from where New York leaves off to where the tip end of Florida j