asino. But, as for catching
your brigand, that request is much too unreasonable to be seriously
entertained.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Frank Mathew tells the truth.]

I can lay no claim to the honesty that has made the other members of
this club so eager to expose their most awkward and ludicrous
adventures. Why should I publish my least pleasant memories to
strangers? That is a task I would leave to my enemies. Besides, whenever
I have come to grief, some other fellow has been to blame. When I fell
into Hampton Lock, before the eyes of a multitude, it was because that
ungainly lout Jones let the boat swing. Jones laughed then, and many
times after when he told the story; but why should I help him to spread
it? But that is neither here nor there. If I had been always as lucky as
the other members of this club, who seem to have remained dignified in
their misfortunes, then I might be less reticent. And if I were so
unscrupulous as to speak only of things less bitter to remember, then I
might tell how on a Bavarian railway I was once waked at midnight by an
excited official who--with an air as if life and death hung on my
answers--plied me with questions in spite of my explaining to him that I
did not even know what language he was talking, and who at last rushed
away leaving me doubting whether he was a mad-man or a nightmare; or how
I lost my way among the hills by Bologna--at a time when I knew no
Italian--and wandered for hours along dusty roads, cursing the ignorance
of the natives; or how, dining at Lugano--in the open air and under a
vine-covered trellis--I ordered a cheap wine, new to me,
"Chateau-neuf-du-Pape," and was delighted when it was brought to me
reverently cradled and in an immemorial bottle, and when it proved to be
a wine of wonderful merit, and how my blood turned cold when the waiter
gave me the bill, for he had mistaken my order, and I had been drinking
Chateau-something-or-other, a priceless vintage.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Alden is not sure which.]

I am not sure what was my most awkward predicament, for the choice lies
between a prayer-meeting and Folkestone. This may seem obscure, but it
isn't, as you will presently see. My Folkestone experience was as
follows:--The baby--I decline to specify whose baby, for the law of
England does not compel any man to confess that he is a grandfather--had
been ill for a week, and the physician sa