Kane and Abel (Kane & Abel 1)

The Kanes travelled to New York by train to join the Aquitania bound for her voyage to Southampton. Anne was appalled by the sight of the immigrant street peddlers pushing their wares, and she was glad to be safely on board and resting in her cabin. William, on the other hand, was amazed by the size of New York; he had, until that moment, always imagined that his father's bank was the biggest building in America, if not the world. He wanted to buy a pink and yellow ice cream from a man all dressed in white and wearing a boater, but his father would not hear of it; in any case, Richard never carried small change.

William adored the great vessel on sight and quickly became friendly with the captain, who showed him all the secrets of the Cunard Steamships'

prima donna. Richard and Anne, who naturally sat at the captain's table, felt it necessary, before the ship had long left America, to apologise for the amount of the crew's time that their son was occupying.

'Not at all,' replied the white - bearded skipper. 'William and I are already good friends. I only wish I could answer all his questions about time, speed and distance. I have to be coached each night by the first engineer in the hope of first anticipating and then surviving the next day.'

The Aquitania sailed into the Solent to dock at Southampton after a six - day journey. William was reluctant to leave her, and tears would have been unavoidable had it not been for the magnificent sight of the Rolls - Royce Silver Ghost, waiting at the quayside complete with a chauffeur, ready to whisk them off to London. Richard decided on the spur of the moment that he would have the car transported back to New York at the end of the trip, which was the most out - of - character decision he made during the rest of his life. He informed Anne, rather unconvincingly, that he wanted to show the vehicle to Henry Ford.

The Kane family always stayed at the Ritz in Piccadilly when they were in London, which was convenient for Richard's office in the City. Anne used the time while Richard was occupied at the bank to show William the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace and the Changing of the Guard. William thought everything was ~greae except the English accent which he had difficulty in understanding.

'Why don't they talk like us, Mommy?' he demanded and was surprised to be told that the question was more often put the other way a - round, as 'they' came first. William's favourite pastime was to watch the soldiers in their bright red uniforms with large shiny brass buttons who kept guard duty outside Buckingham Palace. He tried to engage them in conversation but they stared past him into space and never even blinked.

Van we take one home?' he asked his mother.

'No, darling, they have to stay here and guard the King.'

Tut he's got so many of them, can't I have just one?'

As a 'special treat' - Anne's words - Richard allowed himself an afternoon off to take his wife and son to the West End to see a traditional English pantomime called lack and the Bc - anstalk playing at the London Hippodrome.

William loved Jack and immediately wanted to cut down every tree he laid his eyes on, imagining them all to be sheltering a monster. They had tea after the show at Fortnurn and Mason in Piccadilly, and Anne let William have two cream buns and a new - fangled thing called a doughnut. Daily thereafter William had to be escorted back to the tearoom at Fortnum's to consume another 'doughbun', as he called them.

The holiday passed by all too quickly for William and his mother, whereas Richard, satisfied with his progress in Lombard Street and pleased with his newly appointed chairman, began to look forward to the day of their departure. Cables were daily arriving from Boston that made Em anxious to be back in his own boardroom. Finally, when one such missive informed him that twenty - five thousand workers at a cotton mill with which his bank had a heavy investment in Lawrence, Massachusetts, had gone out on strike, he was relieved that his planned date of sailing was now only three days away.

William was looking forward to returning and telling Mr. Munro all the exciting things he had done in England and to being reunited with his two grandmothers again. He felt sure they had never done anything so exciting as visiting a real live theatre with the general public. Anne was also happy to be going home, although she had enjoyed the trip almost as much as William, for her clothes and beauty had been much admired by the normally undemonstrative North Sea Islanders. As a final treat for William the day before they were due to sail, Anne took him to a tea party in Eaton Square given by the wife of the newly appointed chairman of Richard's London branch. She, too, had a son, Stuart, who was eight - and William had, in the two weeks in which they had been playing together, grown to regard him as an indispensable grown - up friend. The party, however, was rather subdued because Stuart felt unwell and William, in sympathy with his new chum, announced to his mother that he was going to be ill too. Anne and William returned to the Ritz Hotel earlier than they had planned, She was not greatly put out as it gave her a little more time to supervise the packing of the large steamer trunks, although she wa3 convinced William was only putting on an act to please Stuart. When she tucked William up in bed that night, she found that he had been as good as his word and was running a slight fever. She remarked on it to Richard over dinner.