"But are you quite sure," I asked delicately, "whether Mr. Mafferton
is--interested?"

"There's the worst kind of danger of it," Dicky replied impressively. "I
don't know whether I ought to tell you, but the fact is Mafferton's just
got the sack--I beg your pardon--just been _congeed_ himself. They say
she was an American and it was a bad case; she behaved most
unfeelingly."

"You shouldn't believe all you hear," I said, "but I don't see what that
has to do with it."

"Why, he's just in the mood to console himself. What fellow would think
twice of being thrown over, if Miss Portheris were the alternative!"

"It depends, Dicky," I observed. "You are jumping at conclusions."

"What I hoped," he went on regretfully as we took our places in the
elevator, "was that we might travel together a bit and that you wouldn't
mind just now and then taking old Mafferton off our hands, you know."

"Dicky," I said, as we swiftly descended, "here is our itinerary.
Genoa, you see, then Pisa, Rome, Naples, Rome again, Florence, Venice,
Verona, up through the lakes to Switzerland, and so on. We leave
to-morrow. If we _should_ meet again, I don't promise to undertake it
personally, but I'll see what momma can do."

[Illustration: Breakfast with Dicky Dod.]

CHAPTER VIII.

Poppa said as we steamed out of Paris that night that the Presidency
itself would not induce him to reside there, and I think he meant it. I
don't know whether the omnibus _numeros_ and the _correspondances_ where
you change, or the men sitting staring on the side walks drinking things
for hours at a time, or getting no vegetables to speak of with his
joint, annoyed him most, but he was very decided in his views. Momma and
I were not quite so certain; we had a guilty sense of ingratitude when
we thought of the creations in the van; but the cobblestones biassed
momma a good deal, who hoped she should get some sleep in Italy. I had
breakfasted that morning in the most amusing way with Dicky Dod at a
_cafe_ in the Champs Elysees--poppa and momma had an engagement with Mr.
and Mrs. Malt and couldn't come--and in the leniency of the recollection
I said something favourable about the Arc de Triomphe at sunset; but I
gathered from the Senator's remarks that, while the sunset was fine
enough, he didn't see the propriety in using it that way as a background
for Napoleon Bonaparte, so to speak.

"Result is," said the Senator, "the intelligent foreigner's got pre