I stop suddenly, for Mr. Musgrave is looking at me with an expression simply murderous.
"Well, what are you stopping for? I am on the horns of expectation—'Mon premier—'"
"After all, it is not so funny as I thought," I answer, brusquely. "I think we will keep it for some wet Sunday afternoon, when we are short of something to do."
CHAPTER XIV.
The day of departure has really come. We have eaten our last bif-teck aux pommes frites, and drank our last cup of coffee in the Saxe. I have had my last look at the familiar square, at the great dome of the Frauen Kirchen, at the high houses with their dormer-windows, at the ugly big statue standing with its stiff black back rudely turned to the hotel, at the piled hay-carts. We are really and truly off. Our faces are set Barbara-ward, Bobby-ward, jackdaw-ward. I am in such rampaging spirits, that I literally do not know what to do with myself. I feel that I should like to tuck my tail, if I had one, between my legs, like Vick, and race round and round in an insane and unmeaning circle, as she does on the lawn at home, when oppressed by the overflow of her own gayety.
It seems to me as if there never had been such a day. I look at the sky as we drive along to the station. Call it sapphire, turquoise—indeed! What dull stone that ever lived darkling in a mine is fit to be named even in metaphor with this pale yet brilliant arch that so softly leans above us? It seems to me as if all the people we meet were handsome and well-featured—as if the Elbe were the noblest river that ever ran, carrying the sunlight in flakes of gold and diamond on its breast—as if all life were one long and kindly jest.
As we reach the station I see Mr. Musgrave standing on the pavement awaiting us, with a sort of mixed and compound look on his face.
"Here is Mr. Musgrave come to see us off!" I cry, jocundly. "Come to say 'Adieu!' ha! ha! I must not forget to ask him whether he has any more riddles."