For weeks and weeks, I kept on waiting, looking out for anything that might throw light on the whereabouts of my wandering friends, but obtaining disappointment only. The mildness of the winter continued here; but a bitter frost prevailed in Eastern Europe, and the Danube was frozen over at the Iron Gates. Strogue heard from his friend at St. Petersburg that the ice on the Neva was six feet thick, and they could scarcely keep the railways open. And Signor Nicolo was compelled to hope all he could about his nephew Jack, and comfort his daughter Rosa with tales of a cat who lived three months in a snow-drift, and the horse who got into a hay-rick near Durham, and ate his way out again when the thatch began to drip. But he told me in confidence that he never was more pleased to have a bad leg than when Jack's mother came to see him. For sweethearts, being young, may shortly take up with another; but a widow with one child has locked up all her reason in him. However, there was this advantage in the long suspense and waiting, that it gave me time to make all preparations leisurely, and get the money ready for a costly expedition. The cash I could have had from several quarters; Nickols, Strogue, Tom Erricker, and Stoneman, now beginning to recover from his troubles, all in the kindest manner offered to advance me a good round sum. But wonders, when they once set in, are like boys playing leap-frog. Over each other's back they vault, and then down they drop with hand on knee for a taller one to top them. And surely now came the tallest one that ever rolled in at a tithe-barn door, or struck the lintel of a giraffe-house. Hitherto I have felt throughout that every word must be believed exactly as I tell it, not on the faith of my character only, but from internal evidence. This has made me careless perhaps; but now I mean to be very strict, confining every vocable to its first intention, and every numeral to its precise notation. For if any other person had related as follows, my interjections probably would have made him knock me down! The days were beginning to pull out a little, and the wind was gone round to the east--as it always does, when too late to be of service for skates, or wild ducks, or golden plovers, but in good time to kill all bloom and foliage--and having had my bit of bacon in my Privy Council Office (as Grace now called the harness-room), I was dwelling on my bad luck; than which there is no messuage more insanitary for any man to inhabit. When in came my brother Harold, with his hands in his pockets, and his usual slouch, and soft melodious whistle. I had wanted him many times, when I could not find him, especially to show him to Sûr Imar; but now I could see little chance of turning him into any value. "Not fool enough to want a fiver, I suppose," he said without offering to shake hands, for if ever there was a careless fellow about forms, here you had him.