s,
and on learning that I had not, insisted on telegraphing to his friend
to do his best for me. I had not hitherto appreciated the popularity of
a resort which I happened only to know by name, nor did I even on
getting at Lausanne a telegram to say that a room was duly reserved for
me. It was only when I actually arrived, tired out with travel, toward
the second evening, and when half of those who had come up with me were
sent down again to Zermatt for their pains, that I felt as grateful as I
ought to have been from the beginning. Here upon a mere ledge of the
High Alps was a hotel with tier upon tier of windows winking in the
setting sun. On every hand were dazzling peaks piled against a turquoise
sky, yet drawn respectfully apart from the incomparable Matterhorn, that
proud grim chieftain of them all. The grand spectacle and the magic air
made me thankful to be there, if only for their sake, albeit the more
regretful that a purer purpose had not drawn me to so fine a spot.

My unknown friend at court, one Quinby, a civilian, came up and spoke
before I had been five minutes at my destination. He was a very tall and
extraordinarily thin man, with an ill-nourished red moustache, and an
easy geniality of a somewhat acid sort. He had a trick of laughing
softly through his nose, and my two sticks served to excite a sense of
humour as odd as its habitual expression.

"I'm glad you carry the outward signs," said he, "for I made the most of
your wounds and you really owe your room to them. You see, we're a very
representative crowd. That festive old boy, strutting up and down with
his cigar, in the Panama hat, is really best known in the black cap:
it's old Sankey, the hanging judge. The big man with his back turned you
will know in a moment when he looks this way: it's our celebrated friend
Belgrave Teale. He comes down in one or other of his parts every day:
to-day it's the genial squire, yesterday it was the haw-haw officer of
the Crimean school. But a real live officer from the Front we don't
happen to have had, much less a wounded one, and you limp straight into
the breach."

I should have resented these pleasantries from an ordinary stranger, but
this libertine might be held to have earned his charter, and moreover I
had further use for him. We were loitering on the steps between the
glass veranda and the terrace at the back of the hotel. The little
sunlit stage was full of vivid, trivial, transitory life, it seemed