e truth, I had designs on the 'Sea Monster' which
will not be carried out now. I laid up last night inside the
Headland breakwater and made an early start this morning for the
last leg of the trip. I recognized the 'Sea Monster' a long way off,
but I must say I was surprised when I saw Jerry's shirt signaling so
distressfully. Of course I knew who you were at once, when you
called the place the 'Sea Monster,' but Christine did stagger me for
a minute."

"Stagger you?" I said. "Why?"

"I've been thinking you were 'Christopher' all this time, you see,"
he said, "but, being a man of infinite resource and unparalleled
sagacity, I immediately perceived the true state of affairs."

"_Are_ you a professor?" Jerry asked.

"Heavens, no!" our man laughed. "Why do you ask?"

"On account of your style," Jerry said. "It's so grand and stately.
So are your letters, sometimes."

"I am but a poor bridge-builder," the Bottle Man said, "but I can
turn words on or off as I want 'em, like a hose."

By this time the boat was almost in, and our man brought it up
neatly to the float beside the ferry-slip, and some men came over
and helped him to moor it. Then he got out and came back in a minute
with the man who always meets the ferry in an automobile to hire.
The man looked as if he were in a dazy dream, which I don't blame
him for at all, because we did look quite weird. He and the Bottle
Man lifted Gregg, mattress and all, and stowed him in on the back
seat of the automobile. The rest of us perched on the front seat and
the running-board, trying to conceal our strange appearance from the
staring of quite a crowd which was gathering, as it was just
ferry-time.

Our man said, "17 Luke Street, and go carefully." It surprised us
for a second to hear him say our address as if he'd known it always,
but then we realized that he _had_ known it for quite a long time.

I think none of us will ever forget the way the house looked as we
swung around the corner and came up Luke Street. Just the end of the
gable first, behind the two big beeches in the front garden,--oh, we
hadn't seen it for years and centuries,--and then the living-room
windows open, with the curtains blowing, and the little box-bush
that grows in a fat jar on the porch-steps. Mother was coming out at
the front door, and she looked just the way she did when we got a
telegram once saying that Grannie was very ill. Jerry jumped off the
running-board before the automobile sto