ublic entertainment! I wrote back to say I guessed it was an American
entertainment, and he could expect me, all the same. He hadn't any sort
of excuse--my name and business address were on my letter paper. Now I'm
just going round to see what a United States Ambassador's for, in this
connection."

Mr. Malt rose and the waiter withdrew his chair. "Thank you, _garcon_,"
said he. "I'm coming back again--do you understand? This is not my last
meal," and the waiter bowed as if that were a statement which had to be
acknowledged, but was of the least possible consequence to him
personally. "Well, Mr. Wick," continued Mr. Malt, brushing the crumbs
from his waistcoat, "I'll say good morning, and to your ladies also. I'm
very pleased to have met you."

"Well," said momma, as he disappeared, "if every American in Paris has
decided to go to that reception there won't be much room for the
Russians."

"I suppose he's a voter and a tax-payer, and he's got his feelings,"
replied poppa. The Senator would defend a voter and a tax-payer against
any imputation not actually criminal.

"I'm glad I'm not one of his lady-friends," momma continued. "I don't
think I _could_ make myself at home on that man-of-war under the
circumstances. But I daresay he'll drag them there with him. He seems to
be just that kind of a man."

"He's a very patriotic kind of a man," replied the Senator. "It's his
patriotism, don't you see, that's giving him all this trouble. It's been
outraged. Personally I consider Mr. Malt a very intelligent gentleman,
and if he'd given me an opening as big as the eye of a needle I'm the
camel that would have gone with him, Augusta."

This statement of the Senator's struck me as something to be acted upon.
If there was to be a constant possibility of his going off with any
chance American in regular communication with the United States, our
European tour would be a good deal less interesting than I had been led
to expect. While momma was getting ready for the Louvre, therefore, I
stepped down to the office and wired our itinerary to his partner in
Chicago. "Keep up daily communication by wire in detail," I telegraphed,
"forward copies all important letters care Peters." Peters was the
tourist agent who had undertaken to bless our comings and goings. I said
nothing whatever to poppa, but I felt a glow of conscious triumph when I
thought of Mr. Malt.

We stood and realised Paris on the pavement while the fiacre turned in
fr