“If I ever had any, I’ve forgotten them,” said I.  “Look here, Little Pal, shall we join forces as far as—­as far as——­”

“The turnstile,” he finished my broken sentence.

“Where is the turnstile?”

“At the place—­whatever it may be—­where we get tired of each other.  Isn’t that what you meant?”

“According to my present views, that place might be at the other end of the world.  You must remember it was never I who tried to get away from you.  At the Cantine de Proz, I——­”

“Don’t let’s remember to that time.  Then, I didn’t know that you were—­You.  That makes all the difference.  You looked as if you might be nice, but I’ve learned not to trust first impressions, especially of men—­grown-up men.  There are such lots of people one drifts across, who are not real people at all, but just shells, with little rattling nuts of dull, imitation ideas inside, taken from newspapers, or borrowed from their friends.  Fancy what it would be to see glorious places with such a companion!  It would drive me mad.  I determined not to make aquaintances on this trip; but you—­why, I feel now as if it would be almost insulting you to call you ‘an acquaintance.’  We are—­oh, I’ll take your word!  We’re ‘pals,’ and Something big that’s over all meant us to be pals.  I don’t mind telling you, Man, that I should miss you, if we parted now.”

“We won’t part,” I said quickly.  “We’ll jog along together.  Have a cigarette?  I’m going to smoke a pipe, because I feel contented.”

Between puffs of that pipe (an instrument which I strongly but vainly recommended to the Boy) I told him of my night drive over the St. Gothard.  As it was his whim to consider names of no importance, I did not mention that of Jack and Molly Winston, but spoke of them merely as “my friends.”

“Could we do the St. Bernard at night?” he asked eagerly.

“Yes, we could, if we saved ourselves by driving up from here to St. Rhemy, after dejeuner, otherwise it would mean being on foot all day and all night too.  We could send Joseph, Innocentina, and the animals on very early to-morrow morning, to the Hospice, where they might rest till evening.  The good monks would give us a meal of some sort about six, and at seven we could leave the Hospice.  There would be an interval of starry darkness, and then we should have the full moon.”

“Splendid to see the Pass by moonlight, after knowing it by day, and sunset, and dawn!  It would be like finding out wonderful new qualities in your friends, which you’d never guessed they had.”

Thus the Boy; and a few moments later the details of our journey were arranged.  Joseph and Innocentina were interrupted in the midst of ardent attempts to convert one another, to be told what was in store for them.  They did not appear averse to the arrangement, for a slight pout of the young woman’s hardly counted; there was no doubt that a journey a deux would offer infinite opportunities for religious disputation.