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easily than Hiram had expected. They waited until past Reading, and then invaded the compartment in which Peter and the eagle-faced lady were sitting. The girl was a magnificent actress and the boy was clever. It apparently was a meeting between lost child and mother. Hiram explained that they had become separated in the crush. The teacher was unwilling and suspicious because the girl and the boy were talking in German. 'Madame,' said Hiram, 'if you will consult your lists and make a count, I am sure you will find that you have an extra child.'
    The check-up proved this immediately. The woman let him go, snapping a word of warning :' You ought to be more careful, madame. Three men tried to make away with him while he was with me....'
    The girl turned astonished eyes on her, and for the first time
Holliday noted that they wer e a deep violet in colour. 'How dreadful,' she said. 'Thank you so much for your care of my little boy'
    They went back and actually found room in a compartment.
    'What is your name?' asked Holliday.
    The girl turned and looked at him gravely. He had time now to see how exquisite she was, fragile and dainty, with hair the colour of strained honey. She answered him.
    'My name is Heidi.'
    'Who are you, Heidi?'
    She bent her head so that he could not see her face. She said in a very low voice: 'I ... I am Heidi. Will you be hurt if I do not tell you more, you who have been so good and kind?'
    'No,' said Hiram Holliday. 'No. I am happy, very happy. I have never been so happy in my life.' Heidi suddenly closed her eyes and buried her face in
    Hiram's arm. In a few minutes she was asleep with the child cuddled to her and the silent nurse sitting stark upright. Hiram, who had been consulting maps, woke them as the train slowed to come into Totnes. 'We get off here,' he said.
    They followed him unquestioningly. 'We are still forty miles from our destination,' said Holliday. 'But I think we ought to leave the train. Just in case they have arranged for a delegation, you know. Though I rather think, being literal minded as so many Germans are, they will head directly for Penzance. Still ...'
    Heidi slipped her hand into his. 'We will go with you.'
    They found a taxi to take them up the long hill into the little walled city where they found the Castle Inn still open, and an enraged proprietor complaining of the never-ceasing telephone bell - people from London calling up for accommodations. The backwash of the panic was lapping at the walls of the tiny South Devon town.
    Holliday inquired the name of the best hotel in Plymouth and put a trunk call through to the night porter. When he came out of the booth, he was grinning. He consulted his watch. It was just after midnight. 'In five hours,' he said to Heidi, 'you will be on your way to Paris. The s.s. Bordeaux of the French Line was due to call at Plymouth, bound for le Havre at eight tomorrow morning. Because of the war scare, they've pushed her up. The tender leaves at four in the morning. We'll get a car and leave here around two. I want you to sleep until then.'
    While the three slept, Holliday went out and woke the night man in the garage, and arranged for a car to drive them to Plymouth. It was one o'clock when he walked up the hill of the medieval town, passing beneath the old clock bridge, back to the hotel. He was nearly there when, with a rush and a roar, a huge car charged up the hill past him, and then with a scream of brakes pulled up in front of the inn.
    'Oh, oh!' said Hiram Holliday, 'I don't believe it. It only happens in books.' Nevertheless he stepped into a shop doorway shaded by the overhang of an Elizabethan balconade.
    'Hallo.... Hallo ...' a voice cried from the car.... 'Iss anyone up?'
    The proprietor came grumbling to the door and peered out.
    'Hallo!' said the voice. 'Are we on se road for Penzance ?'
    'Well, now ye do be little off of it,' came the reply in broad Devon. 'Go straight on till ye get to Kingsbridge and take the Plymouth turn.