was not
eating or sleeping he was working; his cure did not oblige him to walk
much. He examined March, with a certain mixture of respect and contempt,
upon the nature of the literary life, and how it differed from the life
of a journalist. He asked if he thought Burnamy would amount to anything
as a literary man; he so far assented to March's faith in him as to say,
"He's smart." He told of leaving his daughters in school at Wurzburg;
and upon the whole he moved March with a sense of his pathetic
loneliness without moving his liking, as he passed lumberingly on,
dangling his cup.

March gave his own cup to the little maid at his spring, and while she
gave it to a second, who dipped it and handed it to a third for its
return to him, he heard an unmistakable fellow-countryman saying good-,
morning to them all in English. "Are you going to teach them United
States?" he asked of a face with which he knew such an appeal would not
fail.

"Well," the man admitted, "I try to teach them that much. They like it.
You are an American? I am glad of it. I have 'most lost the use of my
lungs, here. I'm a great talker, and I talk to my wife till she's about
dead; then I'm out of it for the rest of the day; I can't speak German."

His manner was the free, friendly manner of the West. He must be that
sort of untravelled American whom March had so seldom met, but he was
afraid to ask him if this was his first time at Carlsbad, lest it should
prove the third or fourth. "Are you taking the cure?" he asked instead.

"Oh, no. My wife is. She'll be along directly; I come down here and
drink the waters to encourage her; doctor said to. That gets me in for
the diet, too. I've e't more cooked fruit since I been here than I ever
did in my life before. Prunes? My Lord, I'm full o' prunes! Well, it
does me good to see an American, to know him. I couldn't 'a' told you,
it you hadn't have spoken."

"Well," said March, "I shouldn't have been so sure of you, either, by
your looks."

"Yes, we can't always tell ourselves from these Dutch. But they know us,
and they don't want us, except just for one thing, and that's our money.
I tell you, the Americans are the chumps over here. Soon's they got all
our money, or think they have, they say, 'Here, you Americans, this is
my country; you get off;' and we got to get. Ever been over before?"

"A great while ago; so long that I can hardly believe it."

"It's my first time. My name's Otterson: I'm from