But Jill was inexorable.

"It can't be long now," she argued, "and if we go away----There!" She
seized my arm with a triumphant clutch. "Look! They're beginning to get
off."

It was true. One by one the vanguard of passengers was already
straggling laden on to the high gangway. I strained my eyes for a
glimpse of the slight blue figure, which had left the taffrail and was
presumably imprisoned in the press which could be observed welling out
of a doorway upon the main deck....

A sudden and violent stress upon my left hand at once reminded me of
Nobby's existence, and suggested that of a cat. Mechanically I held fast
to the lead, at the opposite end of which the Sealyham was choking and
labouring in a frenzied endeavour to molest a sleek tabby, which, from
the assurance of its gait, appeared to be a _persona grata_ upon the
quay. The attempted felony attracted considerable attention, which
should have been otherwise directed, with the result that a clergyman
and two ladies were within an ace of being overrun by an enormous
truckload of swaying baggage and coarsely reviled by a sweating Hercules
for their pains. As it was, the sudden diversion of the trolley
projected several pieces of luggage on to the quay, occasioning an
embryo stampede of the bystanders and drawing down a stern rebuke,
delivered in no measured terms, from a blue-coated official, who had not
seen what had happened, upon the heads of innocent and guilty alike. The
real offender met my accusing frown with the disarming smile of childish
innocence, and, when I shook my head, wagged his tail unctuously. As I
picked him up and put him under my arm--