Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/269

 Dad? There are pens in the water built up with walls, and lobsters and other creatures are swimming unsuspectingly about in them. You select your own fish, and in a few minutes the poor thing, so happy a little while ago, is on the table exquisitely cooked with its own appropriate sauce. It seems sad. Still, one does give them honourable burial, and they couldn't expect to live for ever. I let Jimmy choose mine, though, and while he and Aunt Mary discussed the langouste I leaned on the railing looking out over the bay. You will remember that scene—all the twinkling lights of the town, and the tumbled mass of the Esterel mountains, sombre and strange, across the sea.

At dinner I began to hint to Aunt Mary about going on to Italy, but I was rather sorry I'd said anything, for Jimmy caught me up like a flash, and exclaimed that if we did make up our minds to such a trip, he would like to keep us company on his Panhard, which he should no doubt find waiting for him at Nice. Aunt Mary asked if we should be likely to meet Lord Lane, as she had heard Jimmy talk so often of his friend Montie that she quite longed to know him. She loves a lord, poor Aunt Mary, and her face fell several inches when Jimmy answered that Montie was a very retiring chap, shy with ladies, and might make a point of keeping out of the way. When we got home to the hotel I had such a start. The Honourable John's letter was gone out of the rack. I made sure that all would now be over between the Napier and me, unless I could get so far away with it that he'd sooner hire another than