he lit a pipe, whose capacity for tobacco was rather less than
that of a lady's thimble, sat in a chair by the window, smoked
quietly, and gazed down on the busy street.

It was yet early in the morning; sellers of vegetables, men and
women peasants, with bare legs and wooden shoes, driving shaggy
Servian ponies attached to low, cumbersome carts, passed and
repassed, to and from the markets. A gendarme, leaning the
weight of his shoulder on the guard of a police saber, rested
against the corner of a wine shop across the way. Students,
wearing squat caps with vizors, sauntered indolently along,
twirling canes and ogling all who wore petticoats. Occasionally
the bright uniform of a royal cuirassier flashed by; and the
Englishman would lean over the sill and gaze after him, nodding
his head in approval whenever the cuirassier sat his horse well.

In the meantime the gendarme, who followed him from the station,
had entered the hotel, hastily glanced at the freshly written
name, and made off toward the palace.

"Well, here we are," mused the Englishman, pressing his thumb
into the bowl of his pipe. "The affair promises some excitement.
To-morrow will be the sixth; on the twentieth it will be a
closed incident, as the diplomats would say. I don't know what
brought me here so far ahead of time. I suppose I must look out
for a crack on the head from some one I don't know, but who
knows me so deuced well that he has hunted me in India and
England, first with fine bribes, then with threats." He glanced
over his shoulder in the direction of the gun cases. "It was a
capital idea, otherwise a certain ubiquitous customs official,