"Circumvent till you're black in the face, you beloved old rag doll," Tommy gave a mirthless chuckle, "but the Princess doesn't go back with you--and that's a cinch. She's going home with me, to visit my sister. Don't you try to follow her, either, for I'm giving it to you straight that you'd last about seventeen seconds in Kentucky. Yes, Professor, I'd say that in Jefferson county seventeen seconds would be a right venerable age for you!" "That shows what small children you are," he laughed contemptuously. "The minute we touch land I order the first police to arrest her--and on my authority he will not dare refuse! She is still a subject of Azuria, and not of age according to its laws! Then I will lay the matter with our representatives in Washington, and your President, fearing to disturb the consummation of his League of Nations, will return her, of course! This for your threats!" He snapped his finger at us and began to fill his pipe. Who'd ever have thought the League of Nations would treat me that way? Tommy saw murder rising in my heart and gave me a warning look. Yet I could see from his puckered forehead that he was pretty well up against a stone wall. Our only hope of success, so far as my mentality could work it out, was instantaneous manslaughter. Finally, amid a complete silence and under the professor's supercilious smile, Tommy got up and went below. Had I tried to enter the cabin, the old fellow would have followed me. A sailor passed aft and whispered to Gates, who surrendered the wheel, went forward and disappeared. Ten minutes later he came back and took a seat near us; affecting to be at his ease, but making a very poor go at it. Soon after him came Tommy, carrying open in his hands a large book, calf-bound and old. For on the cabin shelves my father kept a lot of truck in the way of old books that no one ever read. I saw, also, that Tommy and Gates had reached an understanding. Of course, I was bursting to know what those conspirators had up their sleeves. Tommy stood in the middle of the cockpit, looking serious and thoughtful. Now, in an impressive voice, he said: