Lunch was followed by a conference in the Mason library. Then they were all whisked off to the photographers to have passport pictures taken. Each one was taken into a small room, seated on a chair, and told to look straight into the camera. In a second it was all over.
“Don’t they look just awful!” Bess exclaimed when she saw hers. “Why, they can’t use that thing to identify me. I won’t even admit that I posed for that.” She laughed.
“But will you look at mine!” this from Laura. “I look like—like—”
“Like Puck,” Nan supplied the word which Laura was searching for. “Imagine the trouble we’ll have dragging you past immigration officials and through customs. We’ll have to explain to every officer we meet, ‘No, this isn’t Puck. This is Laura Polk.’ And they’ll look at you and make marks in their notebooks. Then they’ll talk among themselves and debate as to whether or not they should lock you up in a dark dungeon.”
“That’s the girl, Nan.” Laura commended her friend, “And if they hear you they’ll lock you up with me. The United States Government will protest—”
“Oh, no, it won’t,” Amelia cut in. “It will send word to keep you locked up, two such crazy loons! Now, if we don’t get a move on, the Passport Agent’s office will be closed and none of us will ever be able to even leave the country!”
“What’s this about not leaving the country?” Dr. Prescott came into the room from an inner office.
“Oh, we were just teasing Laura,” Nan explained, “about her passport photo. They are all really very poor, Dr. Prescott. Do you think that they will be all right?” Nan was genuinely worried.
Dr. Prescott smiled at her. “Don’t fret, dear,” she reassured her. “Everything will be quite all right, I’m sure.”
It seemed so. They went to the Passport Agent’s office, stopped at a bank to find out about foreign money, to tea—“so that we can get used to having it in England in the middle of the afternoon,” Grace explained.