Bob Bowie grinned, nodded his head significantly, retired, and shut the door.
Fred Temple, left alone, seized a quill and scribbled off two notes,—one to a friend in Scotland, the other to a friend in Wales. The note to Scotland ran as follows:—
“My Dear Grant,—I have made up my mind to go to Norway for three months. Principal object to chase the sun. Secondary objects, health and amusement. Will you go? You will find my schooner comfortable, my society charming (if you make yourself agreeable), and no end of salmon-fishing and scenery. Reply by return of post. I go to Hull to-morrow, and will be there a week. This will give you ample time to get ready.
“Ever thine, Fred Temple.”
The note to Wales was addressed to Sam Sorrel, and was written in somewhat similar terms, but Sam being a painter by profession, the beauty of the scenery was enlarged on and held out as an inducement.
Both of Fred’s friends had been prepared some time before for this proposal, and both of them at once agreed to assist him in “chasing the sun!”
That night Frederick Temple dreamed that the sun smiled on him in a peculiarly sweet manner; he dreamed, still further, that it beckoned him to follow it to the far north, whereupon Fred was suddenly transformed into a gigantic locomotive engine; the sun all at once became a green dragon with pink eyes and a blue tail; and he set off in chase of it into the Arctic regions with a noise like a long roar of the loudest thunder!