CHAPTER V
OFF AT LAST
“The ancients,” stated Jennie Stone solemnly, “burned incense upon any and all occasions—red letter days, labor days, celebrating Columbus Day and the morning after, I presume. But we moderns burn gasoline. And, phew! I believe I should prefer the stale smoke of incense in the unventilated pyramids of Egypt to this odor of gas. O-o-o-o, Tommy, do let us get started!”
“You’ve started already—in your usual way,” he laughed.
This was at Cheslow Station on the arrival of the afternoon up train that had brought Miss Stone, her Aunt Kate, and the smiling Colonel Henri Marchand to join the automobile touring party which Jennie soon dubbed “the later Pilgrims.”
“And that big machine looks much as the Mayflower must have looked steering across Cape Cod Bay on that special occasion we read of in sacred and profane history, hung about with four-poster beds and whatnots. In our neighborhood,” the plump girl added, “there is enough decrepit furniture declared to have been brought over on the Mayflower to have made a cargo for the Leviathan.”
“Oh, ma chere! you do but stretch the point, eh?” demanded the handsome Henri Marchand, amazed.
“I assure you——”