Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/148

Rh Hoe, directly before us, Drake was playing at bowls when they brought him the news that the Spanish were sighted. Surely one thinks of nothing else to compare with that when he thinks of Plymouth!"

"I'm afraid, Mr. Dunneston, there's a whole nation over there," young Preston pointed across the sea, "that thinks of Plymouth primarily as the port the Mayflower sailed from to help start the United States, three centuries ago.

"Up to that time, I guess, your people and mine, Mr. Dunneston, were probably pretty much the same—even as to their sense of humor. But now—it's funny, isn't it, how much difference just three centuries and the Atlantic Ocean make—to the sense of humor!"

He was turning away after that, when a boy came in from the hotel office and handed him a note.

"What's this?" Preston cried, with a hot surge of his blood. He recognized upon the 126