“Better take the vacation, and put it in with me down at Cambridge,” remarked Tom. “They’re doing some work in one of the colleges that might help me with the Denckel machine. I’d like to watch it awhile, and see its bearing on the case. Dorothy would have enjoyed it once, but now she’s hopeless. You two can come down, though, and roam round for three weeks there, as well as anywhere else. It’s a jolly country, and we’ll have a good time.” “Well, if you feel convinced it’s the thing to do, I’ll do it,” I said resignedly. “But I want to put in three weeks here in London, getting things together. We’ve never run down that Cragent clue yet.” “You are neither of you going to do any such thing,” remarked Dorothy firmly. “I’ll tell you what you are going to do for the next three weeks. You’re going to Paris with me.” “Oh, pshaw!” said Tom disgustedly. “Paris is a hole. I want to go to Cambridge. Do you like Paris, Jim?” “Not particularly,” I said, with some hesitation, “but then--” “We’re going,” said Dorothy. “What for?” said Tom argumentatively. “Well, if you must know,” said Dorothy blushing, “I want to shop.” Tom burst into a roar of laughter, and I looked at him in bewilderment. He leaned over towards me. “Got the cards engraved yet, Jim?” Dorothy blushed still more. I saw a sudden light. “Of course we go to Paris,” I said enthusiastically. “It’s the place of places.” “And you’ll sit round for hours, waiting in a dinky little cab or in a motor car on the Boulevard Haussmann, while Dorothy spends her patrimony inside. Is there a special duty on trousseaux, Dorothy?” he asked, with an affectation of seriousness. “I wish you’d stop,” said Dorothy emphatically. “All right,” said Tom. “Only I thought I’d better wire my banker to see if my balance would leave us anything to go home on.” Three weeks in Paris, hours when I sat and smoked outside big shops and little shops, afternoons in the Bois, little “diners à trois” at great restaurants, life, and light, and joy. Three weeks with Dorothy, then the day express to The Hague, and a week of watching the arrival of the envoys, while Tom, who had run across an old assistant of Carl Denckel’s, set up the wave-measuring machine, and spent his days working over it, in an attempt to widen its scope and bring it nearer to its ever present mission. It still remained our chief reliance for our search.