"Then," I said, "if _he's_ selling furniture to pay for a holiday, and _you're_ selling it to buy frocks, I certainly shan't trust you with a penny. If he writes to you you'd better wire me." "Poor Julia!" she laughed. "When she was sensible she could do nothing right, and now that she's quite mad she's as wrong as ever. Well, a short life and a gay one. Good-bye, George, and a happy holiday----" So the evening of the thirtieth found me on the St Malo boat, hoping it wasn't going to rain--for I had looked down below and preferred the deck. Smoothly we glided down Southampton Water. The boat was packed, and I was unable to dine till ten o'clock. Then I came up on deck again and set about making myself comfortable for the night. It did rain, but I was well tucked away in the shelter of a deck-house, and was little the worse for it. A fresh south-west wind blew, and I watched the phantom-grey water that hissed and rustled hoarsely past our sides. The throbbing of the engines began to beat softly and incessantly in my head, and half dozing, I found myself wondering what Derry had done about his passport. "Throb-throb," churned the engines ... perhaps he had forged himself a seaman's and fireman's ticket, signed on as a deckhand or stoker, and had given the L.S.W. Railway Company the slip the moment he had got across. Dreamily, muffled up in my wrappings, I tried to picture it. He would be careful. He would be careful about his beard, for example. He would let it grow a day or so before; perhaps he would now continue to wear a beard. Unless.... And he would sleep the day before and stoke through the night. A stoker for a night, dressed in a boiler-suit or stripped to the waist, as he had stripped when he had held Julia Oliphant's sewing-machine aloft. And grime in his golden beard. Or else the author of _The Vicarage of Bray_ bending the warp on to the drum of the steam-winch or putting the luggage in the slings in the hold. Oh, as she had said, he would get across somehow if he wanted to..... And once across he would have very little trouble. He would mingle with the porters and camionneurs, carrying his gear in his hand. Probably he would pretend it was somebody else's. Then--the small luggage through first--_rien à declarer_--his perfect French--he would be along the quay and in the vedette before they had begun to get the big stuff out of the hold. As for his passport--oh, he would manage.... An employe picked his way through the dark huddles on the deck, took the reading of the log, and retired again. The masthead lights made loops and circles in the rain. I took a nip from my flask and dropped back into my doze. Alderney Light winked, and up the Race it blew stiffly....