'I must fly somewhere,' said Toffy, 'it doesn't much matter where.' 'Has the usual acute financial crisis come?' Peter said, looking affectionately at the long, thin figure on the sofa. 'You can't the least deceive me into thinking you had better go into Argentine to hunt for a man who has been missing for twenty-five years. It isn't good enough!' 'I shall have to get a lot of boots,' said Toffy thoughtfully; 'it seems the right sort of thing to do when one is starting on an expedition, and I would rather like to get some of those knives that fellows seem to buy when they go out to South America.' 'You see,' objected Peter, allowing the question of boots and hunting-knives to lapse, 'the place is right enough, I have no doubt, but it's pretty big, and I don't a bit know what is in front of me. I 'll tell you what I will do, though, I 'll send for you as soon as I get there if I find it's a white man's country at all, and then we will jog round together.' 'I suppose we couldn't go in a yacht?' said Toffy, inspired with a sudden suggestion, and sitting up on the sofa full of grave interest. 'There 'd be much less chance of being copped on the pier than if one travelled on a liner. Another thing, I 'm not at all sure that a yacht wouldn't be a good investment; it really is the only way to live economically and keep out of the reach of duns at the same time. A nice little eighty-tonner now, for instance, with Just two or three hands and a boy on board. What could be cheaper than that? And you could live the simple life to any extent that you liked! But of course something larger would be wanted for Argentine, and she couldn't be fitted out in time. No, Peter, I think I 'll risk having the heavy hand of the law laid upon me at starting, and we 'll just have to lump it and go in a mail steamer.' Peter laughed. 'My bold buccaneer!' he said. They sat silent for a time in the drawing-room with its crude colours and priceless china, while the big fire in the burnished steel grate roared with a jolly sound up the big chimney, and the air was frosty and cold outside. The room despite its hideousness was full of pleasant recollections to them both, for when Hulworth was not let Toffy had often assembled bachelor parties there, and it had always been a second home to Peter, where he had been wont to keep a couple of guns and some of his 'things.' The actual journey to Argentine was not a matter demanding any courage on the part of either of the young men, but the result of the journey might have a grave effect on the fortune of Peter Ogilvie. Tomorrow was to have been his wedding-day; and this fact being persistently present to both men, they left the subject to the last. It was with an effort that Peter said, before they parted for the night, 'Whatever happens, we mean to try to be married when I come back. Jane is awfully plucky about it, but this confounded Court of Chancery does not seem to regard me with much favour at present.'