"Funny," said Marie, "but frogs drove me out of Nickleville! There was nothing to do at home but to listen to their eternal noise; to save my nerves I simply had to break away."
The prospect of that canoe trip was not conducive to easy slumber. The frog chorus in that Pennsylvania swamp, why had it not been less demonstrative? Still lots could happen before morning. One might develop appendicitis or the Germans might get the city. With these two comforting hopes I fell asleep. Morning realizing neither of them, I walked over to Marie's studio.
"Well, then, all ready for the expedition?" I said, masking my pessimism with a smile.
For reply she handed this note which read:
"Dear Marie: I have been transferred from Corbeille to Melun. It makes me ill to be getting ever farther and farther away.—Robert."
With the river trip cancelled, life looked more roseate to me. "And now we can't go after all," I said, mustering this time the appearance of sadness.
"Oh, don't look so relieved," she laughed, "because we're going anyhow."
"But what's the use? He has gone."
"Well, we are going where he has gone, that's all," she retorted.
I pointed out the facts that only military trains were running to Melun; that we weren't soldiers; that the river was out of the question; that we had no aeroplane and that we couldn't go overland in a canoe.