t for me or for Aunt Kathryn I wasn't in a mood to care.

Various toilet things had been ostentatiously laid out, and there was a
bunch of roses in a glass, which in my anger I could have tossed out of
the window; but I hate people who are cruel to flowers almost as much as
those who are cruel to animals, and the poor roses were the only
inoffensive things on board.

"Oh, Airole," I said, "she takes it as a _compliment_!
Well--well--_well_!"

My own reflections and the emphasis of Airole's tiny tail suddenly
brought my anger down from boiling point to a bubbly simmer; and I went
on, thrashing the matter out in a conversation with the dog until the
funny side of the thing came uppermost. There was a _distinctly_ funny
side, seen from several points of view, but I didn't intend to let
anybody know that I saw it. I made up my mind to stay in the cabin
indefinitely; but it was not necessary to the maintenance of dignity
that I should refrain from enjoying as much of the scenery as the
porthole framed in a picture. Accordingly I knelt on the bed, looking
out, too excited to tire of the strained position.

We had passed a long tongue of land, beaten upon by white rollers of
surf, that seemed as if they strove to overwhelm the old forts set far
above their reach. A rocky island too, rising darkly out of a golden
sea; and then we entered the mouth of a wonderful bay, like the pictures
of Norwegian fords. As we steamed on, past a little town protected by a
great square-towered, fortified castle, high on a precipitous rock, I
guessed by the formation of the bay, which Mr. Barrymore had shown me on
a map, that we were in the famous Bocche di Cattaro.

"Yes," I told myself, "that must be Castelnuovo. Mr. Barrymore said the
bay was like the Lake of Lucerne, with its starfish arms. This can't be
anything else."

The yacht glided under the bows of two huge warships, with officers in
white, on awninged decks, and steamed into a long canal-like stretch of
water, only to wind out again presently into a second mountain-ringed
bay. So we went from one to another, passing several pretty towns, one
beautiful one which I took to be Perasto, if I remembered the name
aright, and two exquisite islands floating like swans on the shining
water, illuminated by the afternoon sun. Then, at last we were slowing
down within close touch of as strange a seaside place as could be in the
world. Close to the water's edge it crept, but climbed high on