I scarcely noticed them, beyond leading them on to the pier-steps and leaving them under charge of Miss Goodwin, who had, in matters of luggage and porterage, the practical mind and aplomb of an Englishwoman that has passed much of her time on the Continent. I fancied myself vilely duped by this lady. The boat was empty of its passengers; a grumbling pier- man, wounded in his dignity, notified to me that there were fines for disregard of the Company's rules and regulations. His tone altered; he touched his hat: 'Didn't know who you was, my lord.' Janet overheard him, and her face was humorous. 'We may break the rules, you see,' I said to her. 'We saw him landing on the other side of the water,' she replied; so spontaneously did the circumstance turn her thoughts on my father. 'Did you speak to him?' 'No.' 'You avoided him?' 'Aunty and I thought it best. He landed . . . there was a crowd.' Miss Goodwin interposed: 'You go to Harry's hotel?' 'Grandada is coming down to-morrow or next day,' Janet prompted my aunt Dorothy. 'If we could seek for a furnished house; Uberly would watch the luggage,' Dorothy murmured in distress. 'Furnished houses, even rooms at hotels, are doubtful in the height of the season,' Miss Goodwin remarked. 'Last night I engaged the only decent set of rooms I could get, for friends of Harry's who are coming.' 'No wonder he was disappointed at seeing us--he was expecting them!' said Janet, smiling a little. 'They are sure to come,' said Miss Goodwin. Near us a couple of yachtsmen were conversing. 'Oh, he'll be back in a day or two,' one said. 'When you 've once tasted that old boy, you can't do without him. I remember when I was a youngster--it was in Lady Betty Bolton's day; she married old Edbury, you know, first wife--the Magnificent was then in his prime. He spent his money in a week: so he hired an eighty-ton schooner; he laid violent hands on a Jew, bagged him, lugged him on board, and sailed away.' 'What the deuce did he want with a Jew?' cried the other. 'Oh, the Jew supplied cheques for a three months' cruise in the Mediterranean, and came home, I heard, very good friends with his pirate. That's only one of dozens.' The unconscious slaughterers laughed. 'On another occasion'--I heard it said by the first speaker, as they swung round to parade the pier, and passed on narrating. 'Not an hotel, if it is possible to avoid it,' my aunt Dorothy, with heightened colour, urged Miss Goodwin. They talked together.