t decent of you, as the special emissary plenipotentiary
extraordinary fat-and-hairy agent from Azuria, to give the bride away.
I'm only suggesting it."

But the professor was on his feet, sputtering and waving his arms in a
torrent of rage.

"It shall not be, it shall not be!" he cried. Then suddenly he began to
laugh, looking at us with a superior air of cunning that made my flesh
creep. "Why, you are as pigmies with your childish schemes! You suppose
I have gone this far without arranging everything to circumvent you, or
anything you could do? Bah!"

"Circumvent till you're black in the face, you beloved old rag doll,"
Tommy gave a mirthless chuckle, "but the Princess doesn't go back with
you--and that's a cinch. She's going home with me, to visit my sister.
Don't you try to follow her, either, for I'm giving it to you straight
that you'd last about seventeen seconds in Kentucky. Yes, Professor, I'd
say that in Jefferson county seventeen seconds would be a right
venerable age for you!"

"That shows what small children you are," he laughed contemptuously.
"The minute we touch land I order the first police to arrest her--and on
my authority he will not dare refuse! She is still a subject of Azuria,
and not of age according to its laws! Then I will lay the matter with
our representatives in Washington, and your President, fearing to
disturb the consummation of his League of Nations, will return her, of
course! This for your threats!" He snapped his finger at us and began to
fill his pipe.

Who'd ever have thought the League of Nations would treat me that way?
Tommy saw murder rising in my heart and gave me a warning look. Yet I
could see from his puckered forehead that he was pretty well up against
a stone wall. Our only hope of success, so far as my mentality could
work it out, was instantaneous manslaughter.

Finally, amid a complete silence and under the professor's supercilious
smile, Tommy got up and went below. Had I tried to enter the cabin, the
old fellow would have followed me.

A sailor passed aft and whispered to Gates, who surrendered the wheel,
went forward and disappeared. Ten minutes later he came back and took a
seat near us; affecting to be at his ease, but making a very poor go at
it. Soon after him came Tommy, carrying open in his hands a large book,
calf-bound and old. For on the cabin shelves my father kept a lot of
truck in the way of old books that no one ever read. I saw, also, that
Tomm