kers are Germans," said Mr. Ridding. "Didn't you know?"

"No," said Mr. Twist.

"So are the ones who've just come in."

"Germans?"

"All Germans. So are those behind, just coming in."

"Germans?"

"All Germans."

There was a pause, during which Mr. Twist stared round the room. It was
presenting quite a populous appearance. Then he said slowly, "Well I'm
damned."

And Mr. Ridding for the first time looked pleased with Mr. Twist. He
considered that at last he was talking sense.

"Mr. Twist," he said heartily, "I'm exceedingly glad you're damned. It
was what I was sure at the bottom of my heart you would be. Shake hands,
sir."

CHAPTER XXXII

That evening depression reigned in The Open Arms.

Mr. Twist paced up and down the tea-room deep in thought that was
obviously unpleasant and perplexed; Mrs. Bilton went to bed abruptly,
after a short outpour of words to the effect that she had never seen so
many Germans at once before, that her psyche was disharmonious to
Germans, that they made her go goose-fleshy just as cats in a room made
Mr. Bilton go goose-fleshy in the days when he had flesh to go it with,
that she hadn't been aware the inn was to be a popular resort and
rendezvous for Germans, and that she wished to speak alone with Mr.
Twist in the morning; while the twins, feeling the ominousness of this
last sentence,--as did Mr. Twist, who started when he heard it,--and
overcome by the lassitude that had succeeded the shocks of the
afternoon, a lassitude much increased by their having tried to finish up
the pailsful of left-over ices and the huge piles of cakes slowly
soddening in their own souring cream, went out together on to the
moonlit verandah and stood looking up in silence at the stars. There
they stood in silence, and thought things about the immense distance and
indifference of those bright, cold specks, and how infinitely
insignificant after all they, the Twinklers were, and how they would
both in any case be dead in a hundred years. And this last reflection
afforded them somehow a kind of bleak and draughty comfort.

Thus the first evening, that was to have been so happy, was spent by
everybody in silence and apart. Li Koo felt the atmosphere of oppression
even in his kitchen, and refrained from song. He put away, after dealing
with it cunningly so that it should keep until a more propitious hour, a
wonderful drink he had prepared for supper in celebration of the opening
day--"Me make