"Oh, we'll never see Kewanee again. I know it! I know it! With everybody pushing and shoving us away from the steamers--everybody refusing to cash our checks, and all this fighting going on somewhere up among the Belgians----" The lady from Kewanee pulled out the stopper of her grief, and the tears came copiously. Mr. Sherman, who had made an elaborate pretense of studying a steamer guide he found on the table, looked up hurriedly and blew his nose loudly in sympathy. "Cheer up, mother. Even if this first trip of ours--this 'Grand Tower,' as the guide-books call it--has been sorta tough, we had one compensation anyway. We saw the Palace of Peace at the Hague before the war broke out. Guess they're leasing it for a skating rink now, though." "How can you joke when we're in such a fix? He-Henry, you ne-never do take things seriously!" "Why not joke, mother? Only thing you can do over here you don't have to pay for. Cheer up! There's the _Saxonia_ due here from Naples some time soon. Maybe we can horn a way up her gangplank. Consul says----" Mrs. Sherman looked up from her handkerchief with withering scorn. "Tell me a way we can get aboard any ship without having the money to pay our passage. Tell me that, Henry Sherman!" "Well, we've been broke before, mother," her spouse answered cheerily, rocking himself on heels and toes. "Remember when we were first married and had that little house on Liberty Street--the newest house in Kewanee it was; and we didn't have a hired girl, then, mother. But we come out all right, didn't we?" He patted his daughter's shoulder and winked ponderously. "Come on, girls and boys, we'll go look over those Rock Chambers the English hollowed out. We can't sit in our room and mope all day." The gentleman who knew Kewanee was making for the door when Almer, the suave, came out from behind his desk and stopped him with a warning hand. "I am afraid the gentleman can not see the famous Rock Chambers," he purred. "This is war time--since yesterday, you know. Tourists are not allowed in the fortifications." "Like to see who'd stop me!" Henry J. Sherman drew himself up to his full five feet seven and frowned at the Swiss. Almer rubbed his hands. "A soldier--with a gun, most probably, sir." Mrs. Sherman rose and hurried to her husband's side, in alarm. "Henry--Henry! Don't you go and get arrested again! Remember that last time--the Frenchman at that Bordeaux town." Sherman allowed discretion to soften his valor.