Hardly listening to Peter, he was running over in the most business-like way the little scheme, mapped out and rehearsed together that morning, by which the two superfluous guests, the mere "sleepers" in the orchestra, were to be detached at the proper moment. Yes, certainly; it was sound and would hold water. So would everything else. Peter's things had gone ashore two hours before, for he was to remain in Hunston. Everything had been provided for; the last detail systematically arranged. A surer scheme and a clearer coast could not possibly have been contrived or desired. "At breakfast," continued Peter, "Hammerton suddenly blurted out that, while he wasn't crazed with conscientiousness as a rule, one thing had kept him awake last night. Demanded whether we had the nerve to think that we had simply bought him off with a job. 'Perish the thought, Charlie,' said I, looking kind of hurt at the bare suggestion. 'Thank you, Maginnis,' said he, dignified as the President. 'It's an honest fact that I gave up the chase because I felt all along that you two fellows couldn't possibly be mixed up in anything underhanded.' Aha! thinks me to myself ... Eh, Laurence?" "Just exactly." "Well, cheer up. It's done every day by our best families. And speaking of doing underhanded things," said Peter, "our guests approach rapidly. Up, guards, and at them!" He took off his terrible Panama and waved it in a friendly manner. "How-de-do, Mrs. Marne! Morning, candidate! Welcome aboard." The sister and brother came up the stair, and were cordially greeted by their hosts. "Ashore again!" ordered Varney over the side. "There is another guest." "So we have not kept you waiting after all," cried Mrs. Marne, flashing a triumphant eye upon her brother. "Mary is not here yet--the prinker!" She was dark, vivacious for a chaperon, easily on the correct side of thirty, and arrayed in very light mourning indeed. She had a will: for it was she who had baited J. Pinkney Hare with sociology and politics to abandon the law in New York, at which he was doing rather well, and follow her to Hunston. This was when her husband, a member of Hunston's oldest family--for there was aristocracy in the town--had left her widowed the year of their marriage. "Three times," Hare elucidated to Varney, "did she tell me, 'I'll be ready in a minute.' And a ten-minute interval elapsed each time, by my grandfather's trusted chronometer." "Oh, well," said Varney, "who'd put any trust in a woman who was ready when she said she'd be? Let's get into the shade." "Pinky," said Mrs. Marne, sister-wise, as she turned with Varney, "gets his ideas about women from the comic weeklies." They sauntered aft, Peter and Hare in the rear. "Committee meeting at five-thirty?" "Precisely. And by the bye," began Hare....