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It was some comfort to think that there would be frontpage stories even in the London papers, which have their first pages on the third page, but she did hope he wouldn’t be late for dinner. With all the devotion of a mother and the efficiency of a true American, she telephoned first to the newspapers and second to Scotland Yard.

Just as the happy reporters and cameramen arrived, she heard a slight squealing back in Terry’s room and dashed out to find that Terry had sheepishly sneaked in the back way, accompanied by a yet more sheepish Ginger and by a very sheep of sheeps—a large irregular-shaped dog of a predominating hue of brown, streaked and striped and spotted with black, white, yellow, and plain dirt. He had a broad back, built for boys to ride upon, a tail that wagged foolishly, and an eye that looked with fond ecstasy upon the two boys, but with alarm upon the ineffable Humberstone.

“Good heavens!” wailed Bessie. “That’s that horrible animal I told you you couldn’t have!”

“Oh, no, Mother! THAT”—with vast scorn—“was just a collie-police-dog, with terrier blood, but this is a pure-bred Margate Wader. The man SAID so! And his name is Josephus. The dog’s. And the man wanted to charge me ten shillings, but Ginger got him for me for eighteen-pence and that autographed picture of Fred Stone. ”

“Oh,” groaned Bessie, “to think that I should have a son that’s common! It’s funny, but you’re just like your father. But I haven’t got time to talk about that now. Listen! The reporters are here! You were lost! You gotta tell ’em—a man tried to kidnap you, but Ginger—he’d happened to see you once in the hotel, and of course he knew who you were, and he was coming along, and he persuaded you not to go with this man—he looked like a Bolshevik. Get that? Snappy now!”

With maternal pride, she heard Terry admit to the reporters how reckless he had been in wandering through the foggy city. Ginger, called on for further details, loyally brought in his uncle ‘Ennery Bundock—it seemed that Uncle ‘Ennery Bundock had once served in the Czar’s Imperial Guard, and was an authority on Bolsheviks; it was he who had recognized the Soviet spy and rescued Terry.

The reporters raised their eyebrows and went away, most politely. Next morning, Bessie was up at seven, clamoring for all the newspapers. Terry’s awful escape was mentioned in only one of them, in the column of Mr. Swannen Haffer:

After, so it is asserted, frequently associating with gunmen and like underworld characters of San Francisco, Bangor, and other western cities of the United States, Terence Tate, the American boy cinema actor, discovered that Brighter London is delightfully beginning to realize the perils of his native land. Strolling from his hotel yesterday, Master Tate, whose mother has interestingly compared his art to that of Sir Henry Irving, Sir Johnston Forbes–Robertson, and Eleonora Duse, contrived so thoroughly to lose himself in the trackless wilds of Pall Mall that it was necessary to send out an expedition of hotel servants, equipped with wireless, ice axes, and tinned walrus meat, to discover and rescue him.

Master Tate, with that shrewd perception which has so endeared all Yankee filmaturgy to the nave British heart, discovered a band of red Indians encamped in front of the Carlton Club, and a band of Bolshevik spies, disguised as bishops but concealing bombs under their aprons, lurking on the roof of the Atheneum. Master Tate’s horrendous discoveries have been conveyed to Scotland Yard, and it is to be hoped that thanks to the young hero—who is only six years old; in fact, so young that his mother permits him to have only three motor cars—London will presently be made almost as safe as his native Chicago.

Bessie spoke for half an hour without stopping. It did not soothe her particularly to find, in every newspaper, a two-column account of the children’s party given by the little Princess Elizabeth, with King Maximilian of Slovaria as honor guest, and the announcement that within a week Sidonie and Maximilian were to accompany the British Royal Family to Sandringham Hall, in Norfolk.

The house party, said the announcement, would be informal, and limited to intimate friends of the Family.