With us in the car we could take the inevitable cabin trunk and dressing-case. Adele's heavy baggage was to be consigned to the care of Fitch, who would bring it by rail the same evening to Mockery Dale, the little wayside station which served five villages and our own among them. Nobody from the quay was allowed to board the liner, and none of the passengers were allowed to disembark, until the baggage had been off-loaded. For the best part, therefore, of an hour and a half Jill and I hovered under the shadow of the tall ship, walking self-consciously up and down, or standing looking up at the promenade deck with, so far as I was concerned, an impotently fatuous air and, occasionally, the meretricious leer usually reserved for the photographer's studio. At last-- "If they don't let them off soon," I announced, "I shall break down. The strain of being cordial with somebody who's in sight, but out of earshot, is becoming unbearable. Let's go and have a breather behind the hutment." And I indicated an erection which looked like a ticket-office that had been thrown together during the Crimean War. But Jill was inexorable. "It can't be long now," she argued, "and if we go away----There!" She seized my arm with a triumphant clutch. "Look! They're beginning to get off." It was true. One by one the vanguard of passengers was already straggling laden on to the high gangway. I strained my eyes for a glimpse of the slight blue figure, which had left the taffrail and was presumably imprisoned in the press which could be observed welling out of a doorway upon the main deck.... A sudden and violent stress upon my left hand at once reminded me of Nobby's existence, and suggested that of a cat. Mechanically I held fast to the lead, at the opposite end of which the Sealyham was choking and labouring in a frenzied endeavour to molest a sleek tabby, which, from the assurance of its gait, appeared to be a _persona grata_ upon the quay. The attempted felony attracted considerable attention, which should have been otherwise directed, with the result that a clergyman and two ladies were within an ace of being overrun by an enormous truckload of swaying baggage and coarsely reviled by a sweating Hercules for their pains. As it was, the sudden diversion of the trolley projected several pieces of luggage on to the quay, occasioning an embryo stampede of the bystanders and drawing down a stern rebuke, delivered in no measured terms, from a blue-coated official, who had not seen what had happened, upon the heads of innocent and guilty alike. The real offender met my accusing frown with the disarming smile of childish innocence, and, when I shook my head, wagged his tail unctuously. As I picked him up and put him under my arm-- "So this is Nobby," said Adele. I uncovered and nodded. "And he had a bath this morning, so as to be all nice and clean when Miss Feste arrived. I did, too." "How reckless!" said Adele. "You look very well on it."