er, and my eyes were still fixed on him, when I was
conscious of another figure within my field of vision. This second comer
had descended the same pathway, but had loosened no stones on his
passage. He trod with such exquisite lightness and agility that he had
passed close by me without my being aware of his presence, while he, for
his part, had his eyes fixed with a curious intensity on the thick-set
figure of the German, upon whom, at his rate of progress, he must have
been gaining rapidly. A glance showed me that he was a young man of
slender figure, dressed in a suit of dark-coloured tweed, of English
cut, and wearing a light-brown wide-awake hat. Just as my eye fell upon
him he put his hand into the inner breast-pocket of his coat, and drew
from it something which, as he was now well past me, I could not see. At
the same moment some small object, probably jerked out of his pocket by
mistake, fell almost noiselessly on the path at his feet. In his
apparently eager haste he did not notice his loss, but was gliding
onward, leaving what I took to be his purse lying on the path. It was
clearly my duty to call his attention to it; so I said, "Hi!" an
interjection which I have found serves its purpose in all countries. He
gave a perceptible start, and looked round at me over his shoulder. I
pointed to the object he had dropped, and said, "_Voila!_" He had thrust
back into his pocket the thing, whatever it was, which he held in his
hand, and now turned round to look where I was pointing. "Ah!" he said
in English, "my cigarette-case! I am much obliged to you," and he
stooped and picked it up.

"I thought it was your purse," I said.

"I would rather have lost my purse than this," he said, with a light
laugh. He had apparently abandoned his intention of overtaking the
German, who had meanwhile passed out of sight.

"Are you such an enthusiastic smoker?" I asked.

"I go in for quality, not quantity," he replied; "and a Spanish friend
has just given me some incomparable _cigarritos_." He opened the case as
he ascended the few steps which brought him up to my little plateau.
"Have one?" he said, holding it out to me with the most winning smile I
have ever seen on any human face.

I was about to take one from the left-hand side of the case, when he
turned it away and presented the other side to me.

"No, no!" he said; "these flat ones are my common brand. The round ones
are the gems."

"I am robbing you," I said, as I to