From the front of the house came the murmur of Mr. Bolliver's voice, persuasively, to the aunts. Upstairs in the boys' room there was a frantic clatter of boots. Jane closed the log-book and sat looking out into the waking garden—just where Great-grandfather Mark had sat and looked and smiled a straight blunt smile as he thought of dragon-junks with peacocks' eyes at the prow and cargoes of mandarin silk and jade and jewels.
Mr. Bolliver, Jane thought, must possess some sort of Oriental magic. For who but he could have won the aunts to even a half-hearted consent that the boys should set out? The spring days passed like an extraordinary dream—all the everyday commonplace life was laced with a mystic network of preparation and excitement. Alan spent his evenings polishing his knowledge of wireless and poring over scientific books. He already possessed a good deal of speed and skill as a Marconi operator, and before the war had come to put a stop to all amateur wireless he had boasted an
