"It will be priceless to see you and Klondyke meet," said Silvia. "We shall not say a word about you. You are to be kept a secret. You have just got to come and be sprung on him, and then you've got to tell him to stand by and go about like the sailormen in Stevenson." Henry Harper tried very hard to laugh. It was so clearly expected of him. But he failed rather lamentably. "I don't suppose he'll remember me," was all he could say. "It's years and years since we met. I was only half-grown and half-baked in those days." "Of course, he'll remember you," said Silvia, "if you really sailed round the world together before the mast. But you _will_ let us hear you talk? And it must be pure brigantine _Excelsior_, mustn't it, Mary?" "He's already promised." In the Sailor's opinion, this was not strictly true; at least he had no recollection of having gone so far as to make a promise. He could hardly have been such a fool. Mary, in her enthusiasm, was taking a little too much for granted. "I beg your pardon," he said, desperately, "but I don't remember having said so." "Oh, but you did, surely, as we sat under the tree." "No hedging now," said Silvia, with merry severity. "It will be splendid. And the Prince wants to be in at it." "I don't think we can have Otto," said Mary. "But I've promised him, my dear. It's all arranged. Mr. Harper is to come to dinner. And not a word is to be said to Klondyke." "I dare say Mr. Harper won't want to come to dinner?" Mary looked quizzically across at the sailorman through the dim light of a car interior passing under a Hammersmith archway. "One dinner per annum with the _famille_ Pridmore will be quite enough for him, I expect." "That cuts off his retreat, anyway," said Silvia. "And I think, as the Prince is going to be there, it will only be fair to have Edward Ambrose. Of course, Mr. Harper, you fully realize what you have to do. To begin with, you enter with a nautical roll, give the slack of your trousers a hitch, and as soon as you see Klondyke, who, I dare say, will be smoking a foul pipe and reading the _Pink Un_, you will strike your hand on your knee and shout at the top of your voice, 'What ho, my hearty!'" "How absurd you are!" said Mary, with a rather wry smile. She had just caught the look on the Sailor's face. "Well, my dear, that's the program, as the Prince and I have arranged it." Henry Harper was literally forced into a promise to dine in Queen Street on an appointed day in order to meet Klondyke. There was really no escape. It would have been an act of sheer ungraciousness to have held out. Besides, when all was said, the Sailor wanted very much to see his hero.