"They'll put on a
Pullman with an observation rear in the morning, and if the weather
holds we'll camp out there for the day. We don't get into Washington
till three in the afternoon, and the scenery all the way down will be
fine. I suppose I'll have to go off now and let you be tucked up. Please
get up bright and early in the morning, will you?"
It was a merry party which entered the dining-car the next morning the
moment the first summons came. The day had risen bright and clear as a
June day could be, and everybody was in a hurry to get out on the
observation platform.
Doctor Forester, sitting opposite Charlotte and Andy at one table,
glanced across at the rest of the party, on the opposite side of the
car, and said in a low voice:
"This is literally a case of speeding the parting guest, isn't it?
Captain John Rayburn got you into something of a scrape when he sent you
that copper inscription over your fireplace, didn't he? He didn't
realise that the 'ornaments' it brought you in November would have to be
conveyed away by force in June. It was the only way to give you an
interval when you should, for the first time in the history of your
married life, have no guests at all.
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