“Makes it rather a mouthful,” said Christina Alberta.
“A very pleasant mouthful for Us, I can assure you,” said Miss Emily loyally.
The Petunia Boarding House seemed so satisfactory to Mr. Preemby that it was arranged that he should return the next day but one, bringing with him some clothes and other luggage, and that Christina Alberta was to come and stay with him for a few days—there was a little room upstairs she could have—and then she would go back to London and her studies and take her chance of coming again when there was a room for her.
§ 2
In the train back to London Mr. Preemby rehearsed these arrangements and made his plans.
“I shall come down here the day after to-morrow, after I have put my collections in order at the Mew. I shall put the best things so that they can be seen through the glass of the cabinet, but I think I shall lock them up, and I shall bring down a few necessary books, and then when I have quite settled in I shall go and have a good look at these celebrated Rocks here.”
“We could come down in the morning,” said Christina Alberta, “and go and look at them in the afternoon.”
“Not the same afternoon,” said Mr. Preemby. “No. I want my mind to be quite fresh and open when I look at the Rocks. I think it will be best to see them quite early—after a night’s sleep. When there are no other visitors. I think—I think, Christina Alberta, that for the first time I’d better go to them quite alone. Without you. Sometimes you say things, Christina Alberta—you don’t mean to say them of course—but they put me out....”
Christina Alberta reflected. “What do you expect to find at these Rocks, Daddy?”
Mr. Preemby waved his moustache and the rest of his face slowly from side to side. “I go with an Open Mind,” he said. “Perhaps all of Atlantis was not lost. Some of it may be hidden. There are legends preserved by the philosopher Plato. Partly in cipher. Who knows? It may be here. It may be in Africa. A plan. A sign. The toad rock must be most singular. In the British Museum there is a toad rock from Central America....”