t."

"Indian promises! I won't let you back out now!"

William Anson sighed. His was a sober mind. He liked the solid earth for
his travels, and he would fain leave the air to others. The daring of
young John Scott, for whom he felt in a measure responsible, often
alarmed him, but John concealed under his quiet face and manner an
immense fund of resolution.

"Suppose we go to the hotel," Mr. Anson said. "The air is rather keen
and I'm growing hungry."

"First call in the dining-car," said John, "and I come."

"I notice that you're always eager for the table, although you shirk the
pictures and statues, now and then."

"It's merely the necessity of nature, Mr. Anson. The paint and marble
will do any time."

William Anson smiled. He liked his young comrade, all the more so
perhaps because they were so different. John supplied the daring and
adventurous spirit that he lacked, and the youth had enough for two.

"I wonder if any new people have come," said John, as they walked down
the steps from the terrace. "Don't think I'm weak on culture, Mr. Anson,
but it's always interesting to me to go back to the hotel, see what
fresh types have appeared, and guess from what countries they have
come."

"The refuge of a lazy mind which is unwilling to cope with its
opportunities for learning and progress. John, I feel sometimes that you
are almost hopeless. You have a frivolous strain that you ought to get
rid of as soon as you can."

"Well, sir, I had to laugh at those fat Venuses of Rubens and Jordaens.
They may be art, but I never thought that Venus weighed three hundred
pounds. I know those two painters had to advertise all through the Low
Countries, before they could get models fat enough."

"Stop, John! Is nothing sacred to you?"

"A lady can be too fat to be sacred."

Mr. Anson shook his head. He always stood impressed, and perhaps a
little awed before centuries of culture, and he failed to understand how
any one could challenge the accepted past. John's Philistine spirit,
which he deemed all the more irregular in one so young pained him at
times. Yet it was more assumed than real with young Scott.

They reached their hotel and passed into the dining-room, where both did
full justice to the good German food. John did not fail to make his
usual inspection of guests, but he started a little, when he saw the
Prussian officer of the gallery, alone at a table by a window
overlooking the Elbe. It was one of the plea