w open a door, and stood salaaming that
we might file in before him.

Mamma pitched forward down a step, shrieked, tottered, saved herself by
clawing the air, while Maida and I both pitched after her, falling into
fits of laughter.

It could n't have been colder in the spotty man's family vault, and I
hope not as musty.

Maida flew to one of the two windows, set deep in the thickness of the
wall, and darkened by the stone arcade outside. But apparently it was
hermetically sealed, and so was the other which I attacked. The Ten of
Clubs looked shocked when we implored him to open something--anything;
and it was with reluctance that he unscrewed a window. "The ladies will
be cold," he said. "It is not the weather for letting into the house the
out of doors. We do that in the summer."

"Haven't these windows been opened since then?" gasped Maida.

"But no mademoiselle. Not to my knowledge."

"Make him show us other rooms, quick," said Mamma, who can't speak much
more French than a cat, though she had a lesson from a handsome young
gentleman every day at Cap Martin, at ten francs an hour.

"This is the only one that will accommodate the ladies," replied the Ten
of Clubs. "The other that we have unoccupied must be for the gentlemen."

The idea of our two men and the Prince as room-mates was so excruciating
that I suddenly felt equal to bearing any hardship; but Mamma hasn't the
same sense of humour I have, and she said that she knew she was
sickening for something, probably small-pox.

"Three of us in this room all night!" she wailed. "We shall never leave
the hotel alive."

At this juncture Sir Ralph appeared at the door, peeping gingerly in at
us, and looking the picture of misery.

"I'm so sorry for everything," he said. "Terry's down-stairs, and we
both feel that we're awful sweeps, though we hope you won't think we
are. He's going to interview the other hotels and see if he can find
anything better, so don't decide till he comes back."

We three female waifs stood about and smelt things and imagined that we
smelled still more things, while Sir Ralph exhausted himself in keeping
up a conversation with the Ten of Clubs, as if all four of our lives
depended upon it. The ordeal lasted only about ten minutes, though it
seemed a year, and then Mr. Barrymore's tall form loomed in the dark
doorway.

"There's nothing better," he announced desperately. "But you ladies can
go on to Alessandria by train with Dalmar-K