companion, took
the cosmopolitan guide by the shoulders, pushed him across the road and
posed him in a picturesque attitude on the outskirts of the crowd. Then
she went back to take her picture. The guide, of course, followed her,
and I could see by the vehemence of his shrugs and gesticulations that
his temper had given way. I guessed that his English must have been
almost unintelligible. The scene interested me and I stood still to see
how it would end. The girl in the blue dress changed her intention and
tried to photograph the excited interpreter while he gesticulated. I
sympathized with her wish. His attitudes were all well worth preserving.
If she had been armed with phonograph as well as a camera she might have
secured a really valuable record. The man, to my knowledge, speaks eight
languages, all equally badly, and when he mixes them he is well worth
listening to. In order to get him into focus the girl in the blue dress
kept backing away from him, holding the camera level and gazing into the
view finder. The man, gesticulating more wildly than ever, followed
her. She moved more and more rapidly away from him until at last she
was proceeding backward along the street at a rapid trot. In the end she
bumped against me. I staggered and clutched at my hat. She turned, and,
without appearing in the least put out, began to apologize. Then her
face lit with a sudden smile of recognition.

"Oh," she said, "it's you?"

I recognized the voice and then the face. I also retained my presence of
mind.

"Begging a person's pardon," I said, "when we tread on their toes is a
polite and reasonable thing to do."

Lalage may have recognized the quotation, although I do not think I had
it quite right. She certainly smiled agreeably. But she had no time to
waste on exchanging reminiscences.

"Just make that idiot stand where he is for a moment," she said, "till
I get him photographed. I wouldn't miss him for pounds. He's quite
unique."

The interpreter protested volubly in Portuguese mixed with Spanish and
French. He was, so he told me, placed in charge of the tourists by the
steamboat company which had brought them to Lisbon. If one of them got
lost he would have to answer for it, answer for it with his head, and
the senora, the two exceedingly headstrong senoras, would get lost
unless they could be penned in with the rest of his flock.

I glanced at Lalage several times while the interpreter harangued us,
and noticed that