olydores; but on the morning of the third day Rob began to show signs
of restlessness and spoke of the likelihood of my wife's being
lonely.

"Not with Beth and Ptolemy in calling distance," I told him.

"But they will be off together," he replied, "and your wife will be
alone with that _enfant terrible_. I fancy, too, that your sister
isn't exactly a companion for your wife."

"Well, that shows how little you know her. She and Silvia are great
friends."

"Oh, yes, of course they are friendly, but I mean their tastes are so
different, and they are so unlike. Your sister doesn't care for
domesticity."

"Sure she does. You have turned the wrong searchlight on Beth. If you
knew her, you'd like her."

"I do like her," he declared. "It's too bad she--"

He stopped abruptly and quickly changed the conversation. In spite of
my efforts to renew the controversy about Beth, he refused to return
to the subject.

[Illustration: He pleaded eloquently to be taken with us.]

In the afternoon, when I was doing a little scale work preparatory to
cooking, a messenger from the hotel drove up with a note from Silvia
which I read aloud:

"Ptolemy has been missing for twenty-four hours. We are in hopes he
has joined you. If not, what shall I do?"

"We'll go back with you," said Rob to the man. "Just lend a hand here
and help us pull up these tent stakes."

"What's Ptolemy to me or I to him?" I asked with a groan, "can't we
give him absent treatment?"

"You're positively inhuman, Lucien," protested Rob. "The boy may be at
the bottom of the lake."

"Not he! He was born to be hung."

All this time, however, I had been active in making preparations for
departure, as I knew that Silvia would feel that we were responsible
for Ptolemy's safety, and her anxiety was reason enough for me to
hasten to her.

Rob was quite jubilant on our return trip and declared that the fish
came too easily and too plentifully to make it real sport, but I felt
that I had another grudge to be charged up to the fateful family.

We found Silvia pale from anxiety, Beth in tears, and Diogenes loudly
clamoring for "Tolly." We learned that the afternoon before, Silvia
and Beth had gone with the landlady for a ride, leaving Diogenes in
Ptolemy's care, but on their return at dinner time, Diogenes was
playing alone in the sandpile.

Nothing was thought of Ptolemy's absence until bedtime, and they had
then sent out searching parties to the woods and the l