ed and feminine copy, save and
except that the young lady was dearly and daintily demure, whilst from
this youth impudence and mischief shone forth as light radiates from
a lantern. He, pausing before the sleeping Barndale, blushed not, but
poked him in the ribs with the end of his walking-stick, and regarded
him with an eye of waggish joy, as who should say that to poke a
sleeping man in the ribs was a stroke of comic genius whereof the world
had never beheld the like. He sat on his stick, cocked Mr. Barndale's
hat on one side, and awaited that gentleman's waking. Mr. Barndale,
languidly stretching himself, arose, adjusted his hat, took a great
drink of iced beer, and, being thereby in some degree primed for
conversation, spoke.

'That you, Jimmy?' said Mr. Barndale.

'Billy, my boy?' said the awakener, 'how are you?'

'Thought you were in Oude, or somewhere,' said Mr. Barndale.

'Been back six months,' the other answered.

'Anybody with you here?'

'Yes,' said the awakener, 'the Mum, the Pater, and the Kid.'

Mr. Barndale did not look like the sort of man to be vastly shocked at
these terms of irreverence, yet it is a fact that his brown and bearded
cheeks flushed like any schoolgirl's.

'Stopping at the Hotel de la Ville,' said the awakener, 'and adoing of
the Grand Tower, my pippin. I'm playing cicerone. Come up and have a
smoke and a jaw.'

'All right,' said Mr. Barndale languidly. Nobody, to look at him now,
would have guessed how fast his heart beat, and how every nerve in his
body fluttered. 'I'm at the same place. When did you come?'

'Three hours ago. We're going on to Constantinople. Boat starts at six.'

'Ah!' said Barndale placidly. '_I'm_ going on to Constantinople too.'

'Now that's what I call jolly,' said the other. 'You're going to-night
of course?'

'Of course. Nothing to stay here for.'

At the door of the hotel stood Barndale's servant, a sober-looking
Scotchman dressed in dark tweed.

'Come with me, Bob,' said Barndale as he passed him. 'See you in the
coffee-room in five minutes, Jimmy.'

In his own room Barndale sat down upon the bedside and addressed his
servant.

'I have changed my mind about going home. Go to Lloyd's office and take
places for this evening's boat to Constantinople. Wait a bit. Let me see
what the fare is. There you are. Pack up and get everything down to the
boat and wait there until I come.'

The man disappeared, and Barndale joined his friend. He had s