"Does it ever do things now?" she asked rather breathlessly.
"Oh yes. Listen!" She heard faint reports like distant small guns being
fired. "With any luck it'll give us a bit of a Crystal Palace Bank
Holiday exploit to-night--we sail at midnight, you know. It will be
rather gorgeous if the old bonfire will oblige. Red fires, white and
silver moonlight--why Naples is making me get poetical," he added,
stopping short.
People began to come on deck: the schoolmaster walked along, his finger
in between two pages of a Baedeker in which he was going to count off
the items of interest he encountered.
"Good morning, Miss Lashcairn!" he said with a smile. "See Naples and
die!"
"Oh no--it's too beautiful!" she said quickly. Louis edged her along the
deck as a little clatter of church bells pealed from the many spires
rising above the tall brown houses of the town. A motor-launch
chuff-chuffed out from the quay, flying the yellow flag.
"Port doctor," he informed her. "If he gives us a clean bill we'll be
ashore the minute breakfast's over. And I say, Marcella, let me
_implore_ you not to have Jimmy or schoolmasters in attendance. This is
_my_ show."
She smiled at him and turned to watch three boys scrambling up the
ladder after the port doctor, carrying great baskets of grapes and
flowers and oranges.
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