e morning sun,
half a mile from the village and another from the places where it was
best to bathe.

After a while:

"Aren't you glad I made you come here?" said Daphne triumphantly.

I sat up and stared at her sorrowfully.

"Well?" she said defiantly.

"You have taken my breath away," I said, "Kindly return it, and I will
deal with you and your interrogatories."

"I suppose you're going to say it was you--"

"It was. I did. I have. But for me you would not. You are. I took
the rooms. I drove the car nearly the whole way down. I got you all
here. I sent the luggage on in advance."

"With the result that it got here two days after we did, and I had to
wear the same tie three days running, and go down to bathe in
patent-leather boots, thanks very much," said Berry.

Beyond saying that I was not responsible for the crass and purblind
idiocy of railway officials, I ignored this expression of ingratitude
and continued to deal with Daphne.

"You know," I said, "there are times when I tremble for you. Only
yesterday, just before dinner, I trembled for you like anything."

"It's the heat," said my target, as if explaining something.

"And my reward is covert reflections upon my sanity. Need I say more?"

"No," said everybody.

"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your kind attention. The next
performance will be at four o'clock this afternoon, underneath the
promenade pier."

I relapsed into comfortable silence and sank back into the bracken. My
sister got up from the clump of heather in which she was ensconced,
crossed to where I was, took my pipe out of my mouth and kissed me.

"Sorry, old boy," she said; "you're not such a bad sort, really."

"Dear love," said I, "what have you left behind?"

"My bathing-dress, darling."

In spite of the fact that I returned to the hotel and got it, they were
positively rude about the bathing-cove I selected.

"Bathe there?" sneered Berry, as we looked down upon it, all smiling in
the sun, from the top of the cliffs.

"Thanks awfully, I simply love the flints, don't you, Jill?
Personally, my doctor bled me just before I came away. But don't let
me stop you others. Lead on, brother--lead the way to the shambles!"

Of course, Daphne took up the running.

"My dear boy, look at the seaweed on the rocks! Why, we should slip
and break our legs before we'd taken two steps!"

"That's all right," said Berry. "We have between us three shirts.
Torn into s