"Well, perhaps I did," confessed Jasper, bursting into a laugh. "Who wouldn't run with a lot of staring idiots flying at one?" he brought up in disgust.
"And we forgot the music," went on Polly, deep in the reminiscence, "and we wouldn't go back—don't you remember?—until the big fat man with the dreadful black beard had gone, for he'd picked it up and been looking at it."
"Yes, I remember all about it," said Jasper; "dear me, what a time we had! It's enough to make one wish that the summer was all over, and that we were fairly settled in Dresden," he added gloomily, as he saw her face.
"Oh, no," exclaimed Polly, quickly, and quite shocked to see the mischief that she had done.
"We wouldn't have the beautiful summer go a bit faster, Jasper. Why, that would be too dreadful to think of."
"But you want to get at your music, Polly."
"I'll fly at it when the time comes," cried Polly, with a wise little nod, "never you fear, Jasper. Now come on; let's get Phronsie and go out and see the shops."
Old Mr. King in a nook behind the curtain, dropped the newspaper in his lap and thought a bit. "Best to wait till we get to Lucerne," he said to himself, nodding his white head; "then, says I, Polly, my child, you shall have your piano."
And when their party were settling down in the hotel at Lucerne, ending the beautiful days of travel after leaving Munich, Jasper's father called him abruptly. "See here, my boy."
"What is it, father?" asked Jasper, wonderingly; "the luggage is all right; it's gone up to the rooms—all except the portmanteau, and Francis will go down to the station and straighten that out."