w, with tears in my voice. As it is, I'll
be getting the local colour a bit smudged, maybe: but I guess--
I guess,' said Caffyn--and his gaze seemed to turn inward and
become far withdrawn--'I guess--'O Hardy, kiss me ere I die!'--
No, that's wrong: it isn't the cockpit of the _Victory_.
It's the after-saloon of the Calais-Dover packet--shortest
route--and I see you two there at table, eating cold roast beef,
underdone, with plain boiled potatoes. With plain boiled
potatoes--yes, and mixed pickles.' He passed a hand over his
eyes. 'Excuse me, gentlemen; the vision is blurred just here--
if someone would kindly shoot that lady on the stage and stop
her--it's not much to ask, when she's exposing so much of her
personality--How the devil can I tell the difference between
mixed pickles and piccalilli while she's committing murder on
the high C? _Passez outre_. . . . I see you eating like men who
haven't seen Christian food for years; yet you are swallowing it
in a hurry that almost defeats the blessed taste; because one of
you has just shouted up, with his mouth full, a command to be
informed as soon as ever the white shore of Albion can be spied
from deck. It is a race with Time--Shakespeare's Cliff against
a pickled onion. . . . Oh, have done! have done!'

"'Thank you, Caffyn,' said I. 'You may come out of your trance.
You have done admirably.'

"'Wonderful,' breathed Farrell; and he breathed it heavily.
'I won't say I'd actually arrived at a plain-boiled potato--'

"'But it was floating in your brain,' I chimed him down.
'Such is the province of imaginative art, of poetry, as defined
by that great Englishman, Samuel Johnson. It reproduces our
common thoughts with a great increase of sensibility.'

"'Mr. Caffyn has put it rightways, anyhow,' Farrell insisted.
'Look here, Doctor'--he calls me by that title and none other--
'What's the programme for to-morrow.'

"'Versailles,' said I.

"'Then we'll make it so. But, the day after, I'm for England.
. . . I don't mind telling you, Mr. Caffyn, that the Doctor
and me hit it off first-class.'

"'I've noted it,' said Caffyn quietly.

"'And it's the rummier,' Farrell pursued, 'because him and me--
or, as I should say, he and I--started this tour upon what you
might call a mutua