tiresome club was ruining his temper; the whole
world was going wrong. The doctor told him he was approaching nervous
prostration; his mother's anxious eyes could no longer be denied, so he
realized grimly that there was but one course left open to him.

He suggested it to the doctor, to his mother and to his uncle, and they
agreed with him. It involved Europe.

Having fully decided again to cross the sea, his spirits revived. He
became more cheerful, took an interest in things that were going on,
and, by the time the Kaiser Wilhelm sailed in September, was the picture
of health and life.

He was off for Edelweiss--to the strange Miss Guggenslocker who had
thrown him a kiss from the deck that sailing-day.

VI. GRAUSTARK

Two weeks later Grenfall Lorry was landed and enjoying the sensations,
the delights of that wonderful world called by the name of Paris. The
second day after his arrival he met a Harvard man of his time on the
street. Harry Anguish had been a pseudo art student for two years. When
at college he was a hail-fellow-well-met, a leader in athletics and
in matters upon which faculties frown. He and Lorry were warm friends,
although utterly unlike in temperament; to know either of these men
was to like him; between the two one found all that was admirable and
interesting in man. The faults and virtues of each were along such
different lines that they balanced perfectly when lumped upon the
scale of personal estimation. Their unexpected meeting in Paris, was
as exhilarating pleasure to both, and for the next week or so they were
inseparable. Together they sipped absinthe at the cafes and strolled
into the theaters, the opera, the dance halls and the homes of some of
Anguish's friends, French and American.

Lorry did not speak to his friend of Graustark until nearly two weeks
after his arrival in the city. He had discussed with himself the
advisability of revealing his plans to Anguish, fearing the latter's
ridicule with all the cowardice of a man who knows that scoffing is, in
a large measure, justifiable. Growing impatient to begin the search for
the unheard-of country, its capital and at least one of its inhabitants,
he was at last compelled to inform Anguish, to a certain extent, of his
plans for the future. He began by telling him of his intention to take
a run over toward Vienna, Buda-Pesth and some of the Eastern
cities, expecting to be gone a couple of months. To his surprise and
constern