e least expects it. I don't pretend to
understand much about the weather myself, sir, but I shouldn't wonder if
it _was_ to come on to blow 'ard. It ain't an uncommon thing at
Ramsgate, sir."

The traveller, who was a man of few words, said "Humph!" to which the
waiter dutifully replied "Yessir," feeling, no doubt, that the
observation was too limited to warrant a lengthened rejoinder.

The waiter of the Fortress Hotel had a pleasant, sociable, expressive
countenance, which beamed into a philanthropic smile as he added--

"Can I do anything for you, sir?"

"Yes--tea," answered the traveller with the keen grey eyes, turning, and
poking the fire with the heel of his boot.

"Anything _with_ it, sir?" asked the waiter with that charmingly
confident air peculiar to his class, which induces one almost to believe
that if a plate of elephant's foot or a slice of crocodile's tail were
ordered it would be produced, hot, in a few minutes.

"D'you happen to know a man of the name of Jones in the town?" demanded
the traveller, facing round abruptly.

The waiter replied that he had the pleasure of knowing at least seven
Joneses in the town.

"Does one of the seven deal largely in cured fish and own a small
sloop?" asked the traveller.

"Yessir, he do, but he don't live in Ramsgate; he belongs to Yarmouth,
sir, comes 'ere only now and then."

"D'you know anything about him?"

"No, sir, he don't frequent this 'otel."

The waiter said this in a tone which showed that he deemed that fact
sufficient to render Jones altogether unworthy of human interest; "but I
believe," he added slowly, "that he is said to 'ave plenty of money,
bears a bad character, and is rather fond of his bottle, sir."

"You know nothing more?"

"Nothing, sir."

"Ham and eggs, dry toast and shrimps," said the keen-eyed traveller in
reply to the reiterated question.

Before these viands were placed on the table the brief twilight had
passed away and darkness en-shrouded land and sea. After they had been
consumed the traveller called for the latest local paper, to which he
devoted himself for an hour with unflagging zeal--reading it straight
through, apparently, advertisements and all, with as much diligence as
if it were a part of his professional business to do so. Then he tossed
it away, rang the bell, and ordered a candle.

"I suppose," he said, pointing towards the sea, as he was about to quit
the room, "that that is the floating light?"