"I'll take steps to go there," said Roger earnestly. "Say, does the water ever come up here?"
"I don't think so. Even at the spring tides, it would probably not reach within two feet of this ledge. Only a rip-snorter of a tempest could endanger goods stored here, or even anybody who chose this cave to hide in."
"Some hiding-place," admitted Roger.
"So I've found it. When I was about your age, I came down here because
I was annoyed with the world in general and stopped between two tides."
"Really?" gasped Roger. "Did you get wet?"
"Not a bit. I'll admit that things seemed spooky when I'd waited so long that I couldn't get out. I took solid comfort in the ferns and in a sea pink that had put out a scared little blossom right where we are sitting. I was shut in the better part of six hours and time proved a bit slow. I remember coming to the conclusion that perhaps the people I'd left behind weren't so utterly unreasonable after all. I fancy it's a rather sure sign that when you can't rub along with anybody, the trouble isn't altogether with them."
Roger looked at him suspiciously but Max's gaze was bent on the cave entrance, arching over a wonderful view of blue sea.
"Do you like to live in Paris?" he asked hastily.
"I'd rather stop in Rome where my father is," Max replied, suppressing a smile over the sudden change of subject. "But Dad runs up occasionally. I feel as though I'd be more use in Rome because there I know everybody who is anybody, you see, and it would be a help to the Embassy. Dad thinks I may be able to work a transfer after a year or so. If the Ambassador to Italy remarks to the State Department at Washington that Maxfield Hamilton seems a likely young chap with both eyes open and that he wouldn't mind having him on his staff, why Max may receive a document telling him to pack his little box and attach his person to the Embassy at Rome."
Roger laughed. "Then you don't like Paris?"