"Do you take in China at all?" asked Reggie.

"We'll probably stop at Shanghai and Hongkong," replied Joe. "I don't imagine the c.h.i.n.ks can sc.r.a.pe up any kind of a baseball team, but there are big foreign colonies at both of those places and they'll turn out in force to see players from the States. Then after touching at Manila, we'll go to Australia, taking in all the big towns like Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. While of course the Australians are crazy about cricket, like all Englishmen, they're keen for every kind of athletic sport, and we're sure of big crowds there. After that we sail for Ceylon and from there to Egypt."

"I'd like to see Egypt better than any other place," broke in Clara. "I've always been crazy to go there."

"It's full of curiosities," remarked Jim. "There's the Sphinx, for instance--a woman who hasn't said a word for five thousand years."

Clara flashed a withering glance at him, under which he wilted.

"Don't mix your Greek fable and your Egyptian facts, Jim," chuckled Joe.

"Huh?"

"Fact. Since this trip's been in the wind, I've been reading up. Those Egyptian sphinxes--those that haven't a ram's or a hawk's head--have a man's, not a woman's, head."

"That's why they've been able to keep still so long, then!" exclaimed Jim.

"You mean thing!" cried Mabel.

"Don't lay that up against me," he begged, penitently, "and I'll send you back a little crocodile from the Nile."

"Oh, the horrid thing!" cried Clara with a shudder.

"I'm doing the best I can," said Jim, plaintively. "I can't send you one of the pyramids."

"That's the last we'll see of Africa," went on Joe. "After that, we set sail for Italy and land at Naples. Then we work our way up through Rome, Florence, Milan, Monte Carlo, Ma.r.s.eilles, Paris and London. We'll stay about a month in Great Britain, visiting Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin.

Then we'll make tracks for home, and maybe we won't be glad to get here!"

The vision conjured up by this array of famous cities offered such scope for endless surmise and speculation that they were surprised at the flight of time when Mrs. Matson smilingly summoned them to supper.

Of course, Joe sat beside Mabel and Jim beside Clara. If, in the course of the evening meal, Joe's hand and Mabel's met beneath the table, it was purely by accident. Jim, on his side would cheerfully have risked such an accident, but had no such luck.

Joe was happy, supremely happy in the presence by his side of the dearest girl in all the world. Yet there was a queer little ache at his heart because of the apparent indifference with which Mabel had viewed their coming separation.

"You haven't said once," he said to her in a low tone, with a touch of tender reproach, "that you were sorry I was going."

"Why should I," answered Mabel, demurely, "since I am going with you?"

CHAPTER VII

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS

If Mabel had counted on creating a sensation, she succeeded beyond her wildest hopes.

For a moment, Joe thought that he must have taken leave of his senses.

"What!" he cried, incredulously, half rising to his feet.

This sudden e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n drew the attention of all the others seated at the table.

"Land sakes, Joe!" expostulated his mother, "you almost made me upset my tea cup. What's the matter?"

"Enough's the matter," responded Joe, jubilantly. "That is, if Mabel really means what she said just now."

"What was it you said, Mabel dear?" asked Clara.

"Come, 'fess up," invited Jim.

"I guess I'll let Reggie tell the rest of it," said Mabel, blushing under the battery of eyes turned upon her.

"All right, Sis," said Reggie, affably. "Bah Jove, I give you credit for holding in as long as you have. The fact is," he continued, beaming amiably upon all the party, "the governor asked me to take a trip to j.a.pan and China, and Mabel put in to come along. I didn't twig what the little minx was up to, until she said we could go on the same steamer that took the baseball party. Lots of other women--wives of the managers and players and so on--will go along, I understand. So there's the whole bally story in a nutsh.e.l.l. Rippin' good idea I call it--what?"

"Glory hallelujah!" cried Joe, grasping Mabel's hand, openly this time.

"It's simply great!" cried Jim, enthusiastically.

"You darling, lucky girl!" exclaimed Clara, while Mr. and Mrs. Matson smiled their pleasure.

"Had you up in the air for a minute, didn't it, old top?" grinned Reggie.

"I should say it did," Joe admitted. "I thought for a minute I was going crazy. Somebody pinch me."

Jim reached over and accommodated him.

"Ouch!" cried Joe, rubbing his arm. "You needn't be so literal."

"There's nothing I wouldn't do for my friends," said Jim, piously.

Questions poured in thick and fast.

"How can you possibly get ready in time?" asked Clara. "It's the sixteenth now, and the teams leave Chicago on the nineteenth."

"Oh, we're not going to make the trip across the country," explained Mabel, flushed with happiness. "Reggie and I will join the party in San Francisco or Seattle, or wherever they start from. So that will give us nearly a month, and I'm going to spend most of that right here--if you can stand me that long."

Clara came round the table and gave her an impulsive hug.

"I'd be glad to have you stay here forever," said Mrs. Matson fervently.

Just here a thought struck Joe.

"It's the greatest thing ever that you're going as far as j.a.pan," he said.

"But why can't you keep on with us and swing right around the circle?"

"You greedy boy!" murmured Mabel.