humorous in an original manner. Krupp received the jocularities
with the enigmatic good-fellow air with which he received everything.
None knew whether Krupp admired or disdained, loved or hated, the Five
Towns and the English character. He was a foreigner from some vague
frontier of Switzerland, possessing no language of his own but a
patois, and speaking other languages less than perfectly. He had been
a figure in the Five Towns Hotel for over twenty years. He was an
efficient waiter; yet he had never risen on the staff, and was still
just the lounge or billiard-room waiter that he had always been--and
apparently content with Destiny.

Louis asked brusquely, as one who had no time to waste, "Will
Faulkner's be open?"

Krupp bent down and glanced through an interstice of a partition at a
clock in the corridor.

"Yes, sir," said Krupp with calm certainty.

Louis, pleased, thought, "This man is a fine waiter." Somehow Krupp
made it seem as if by the force of his will he had forced Faulkner's
to be open--in order to oblige Mr. Fores.

"Because," said Louis casually, "I've no luggage, not a rag, and I
want to buy a few things, and no other place'll be open."

"Yes, sir," said Krupp, mysterious and quite incurious. He did not
even ask, "Do you wish a room, sir?"

"Heard about my accident, I suppose?" Louis went on, a little
surprised that Krupp should make no sympathetic reference to his
plasters.

Krupp became instantly sympathetic, yet keeping his customary reserve.

"Yes, sir. And I am pleased to see you are recovered," he said, with
the faint, indefinable foreign accent and the lack of idiom which
combined to deprive his remarks of any human quality.

"Well," said Louis, not quite prepared to admit that the affair had
gone so smoothly as Krupp appeared to imply, "I can tell you I've
had a pretty bad time. I really ought not to be here now, but--" He
stopped.

"Strange it should happen to you, sir. A gentleman who was in here
the other day said that in his opinion you were one of the cleverest
cyclists in the Five Towns."

Louis naturally inquired, "Who was that?"

"I could not say, sir. Not one of our regular customers, sir," with a
touch of mild depreciation. "A dark gentleman, with a beard, a little
lame, I fancy." As Krupp had invented the gentleman and his opinion
to meet the occasion, he was right in depriving him of the rank of a
regular customer.

"Oh!" murmured Louis. "By the way, has Mr. Gibb