As they passed up among the Ionian Isles, and she heard Agamemnon and Elizabeth Eliza and their Russian friend (who was accompanying them to Constantinople) talking of the old gods of Greece, she fancied that they were living still, and that Neptune and the classic waves were wreaking their vengeance on them, and pounding and punishing them for venturing to rule them with steam.  She was fairly terrified.  As they entered Smyrna she declared she would never enter any kind of a boat again, and that Mr. Peterkin must find some way by which they could reach home by land.

How delightful it was to draw near the shore, on a calm afternoon,—­even to trust herself to the charge of the boatmen in leaving the ship, and to reach land once more and meet the tumult of voices and people!  Here were the screaming and shouting usual in the East, and the same bright array of turbans and costumes in the crowd awaiting them.  But a well-known voice reached them, and from the crowd rose a well-known face.  Even before they reached the land they had recognized its owner.  With his American dress, he looked almost foreign in contrast to the otherwise universal Eastern color.  A tall figure on either side seemed, also, each to have a familiar air.

Were there three Solomon Johns?

No; it was Solomon John and the two other little boys—­but grown so that they were no longer little boys.  Even Mrs. Peterkin was unable to recognize them at first.  But the tones of their voices, their ways, were as natural as ever.  Each had a banana in his hand, and pockets stuffed with oranges.

Questions and answers interrupted each other in a most confusing manner:—­

“Are you the little boys?”

“Where have you been?”

“Did you go to Vesuvius?”

“How did you get away?”

“Why didn’t you come sooner?”

“Our India-rubber boots stuck in the hot lava.”

“Have you been there all this time?”

“No; we left them there.”

“Have you had fresh dates?”

“They are all gone now, but the dried ones are better than those squeezed ones we have at home.”

“How you have grown!”

“Why didn’t you telegraph?”

“Why did you go to Vesuvius, when Papa said he couldn’t?”

“Did you, too, think it was Pnyx?”

“Where have you been all winter?”

“Did you roast eggs in the crater?”

“When did you begin to grow?”

The little boys could not yet thoroughly explain themselves; they always talked together and in foreign languages, interrupting each other, and never agreeing as to dates.

Solomon John accounted for his appearance in Smyrna by explaining that when he received his father’s telegram in Athens, he decided to meet them at Smyrna.  He was tired of waiting at the Pnyx.  He had but just landed, and came near missing his family, and the little boys too, who had reached Athens just as he was leaving it.  None of the family wished now to continue their journey to Athens, but they had the advice and assistance of their Russian friend in planning to leave the steamer at Constantinople; they would, by adopting this plan, be en route for the proposed excursion to the Volga.