no conception of the correct meaning
of the word, and that it may have been handed down to him either from
the military number of an ancestor who had served in the English ranks
during the Great War, or that originally it was the number of some
famous regiment with which a forbear fought.

Now that we were reunited, we held a council to determine what course
we should pursue in the immediate future. Snider was still for setting
out to sea and returning to Pan-America, but the better judgment of
Delcarte and Taylor ridiculed the suggestion--we should not have lived
a fortnight.

To remain in England, constantly menaced by wild beasts and men equally
as wild, seemed about as bad. I suggested that we cross the Channel
and ascertain if we could not discover a more enlightened and civilized
people upon the continent. I was sure that some trace of the ancient
culture and greatness of Europe must remain. Germany, probably, would
be much as it was during the twentieth century, for, in common with
most Pan-Americans, I was positive that Germany had been victorious in
the Great War.

Snider demurred at the suggestion. He said that it was bad enough to
have come this far. He did not want to make it worse by going to the
continent. The outcome of it was that I finally lost my patience, and
told him that from then on he would do what I thought best--that I
proposed to assume command of the party, and that they might all
consider themselves under my orders, as much so as though we were still
aboard the Coldwater and in Pan-American waters.

Delcarte and Taylor immediately assured me that they had not for an
instant assumed anything different, and that they were as ready to
follow and obey me here as they would be upon the other side of thirty.

Snider said nothing, but he wore a sullen scowl. And I wished then, as
I had before, and as I did to a much greater extent later, that fate
had not decreed that he should have chanced to be a member of the
launch's party upon that memorable day when last we quitted the
Coldwater.

Victory, who was given a voice in our councils, was all for going to
the continent, or anywhere else, in fact, where she might see new
sights and experience new adventures.

"Afterward we can come back to Grabritin," she said, "and if Buckingham
is not dead and we can catch him away from his men and kill him, then I
can return to my people, and we can all live in peace and happiness."

She spoke of