add _per contra_ (as we say
in business) that when I arrived at Lucerne a week or so later I found a
letter, _poste restante_, from Mr. Cyrus Hitchcock, inclosing an English
ten-pound note. He wrote that he had received two orders for Manitous
from Hornberg; and 'feeling considerable confidence that these must
necessarily originate' from my German students, he had the pleasure of
forwarding me what he hoped would be the first of many similar
commissions.

[Illustration: FELT A PERFECT LITTLE HYPOCRITE.]

I will not describe my further adventures on the still steeper mountain
road from Hornberg to Triberg and St. Georgen--how I got bites on the
way from an English curate, an Austrian hussar, and two unprotected
American ladies; nor how I angled for them all by riding my machine up
impossible hills, and then reclining gracefully to eat my lunch (three
times in one day) on mossy banks at the summit. I felt a perfect little
hypocrite. But Mr. Hitchcock had remarked that business is business; and
I will only add (in confirmation of his view) that by the time I reached
Lucerne, I had sown the good seed in fifteen separate human souls, no
less than four of which brought forth fruit in orders for Manitous
before the end of the season.

I had now so little fear what the morrow might bring forth that I
settled down in a comfortable hotel at Lucerne till Elsie's holidays
began; and amused myself meanwhile by picking out the hilliest roads I
could find in the neighbourhood, in order to display my steel steed's
possibilities to the best advantage.

By the end of July, Elsie joined me. She was half-angry at first that I
should have forced the ticket and my hospitality upon her.

'Nonsense, dear,' I said, smoothing her hair, for her pale face quite
frightened me. 'What is the good of a friend if she will not allow you
to do her little favours?'

'But, Brownie, you said you wouldn't stop and be dependent upon _me_ one
day longer than was necessary in London.'

'That was different,' I cried. 'That was Me! This is You! I am a great,
strong, healthy thing, fit to fight the battle of life and take care of
myself; you, Elsie, are one of those fragile little flowers which 'tis
everybody's duty to protect and to care for.'

She would have protested more; but I stifled her mouth with kisses.
Indeed, for nothing did I rejoice in my prosperity so much as for the
chance it gave me of helping poor dear overworked, overwrought Elsie.

W