broad face, having lost no time in
being full of compliments about Kirtley's accent, went on:

"You Americans learn our language better than we do yours. I could
never get the th in my school. You seem to _do_ everything so
differently in America, too. Now, there's your great game of cards,
for instance. I was on a boat once going down the Danube and some of
your compatriots were playing it. They called it--ach Gott!--what
did they call it? _You_ know."

"Poker," said Gard, amused.

"No, that isn't it."

"Bridge."

"No, the devil, why can't I think of it? They played it--if I had a
pack of cards I would show you what I mean. You could name it then."

The German called the attendant. The latter did not come. The other
hurried into the restaurant and came back waving a deck.

"Now I will try to show you. I can't do it well. I have never seen
it but once."

"Monte," said Gard. It was not the name the German recognized.
Kirtley laughed over this old county fair acquaintance. Three card
monte under the walls of Charlemagne's church! This was bringing the
ancient and the modern together with a vengeance. Furstenheimer
thought the game was droll. He had never seen any played like that.

"How can that be a game!" he exclaimed--"only three cards! You must
have left out something. It looks ridiculous. What's the point?"

"Why, you _bet_!" cried the dealer who was awkwardly manipulating
the cards. The two strangers wagered with each other, and the
Wuerttemberger at last got interested and bet first against one,
then the other. In a few minutes he had lost two hundred marks to
the dealer, and acted as if worried. The dealer won also from his
associate, but not so readily.

"A gambler, and playing clumsily to fool me," Gard had promptly said
to himself. He endeavored to save his friend from falling deeper
into the toils. He nudged him under the table, but the Teuton
stupidly understood nothing. He kept on, more and more distraught,
losing money, then groaning about it and wiping his trickling and
distressed countenance.

When the dealer finally saw that Kirtley would not wager, he grew
noisy.

"Not to play your own national game--is it polite, I say?" He
flaunted the cards before Gard.

"I do not bet," Kirtley repeated as pleasantly as he could, and the
tall German tried to quiet his mate.

The rain, which had been brewing, presently began to come down and
was breaking up the sport. They agreed to dine in the in