rn. In fine,
they trudged back to Leopoldstadt, where an absurd series of
discomfitures awaited them in their attempts to get a fiacre over into
the main city. They visited all the stands known to the consul, and then
they were obliged to walk. But they were not tired, and they made their
distance so quickly that Colonel Kenton's spirits rose again. He was
able for the first time to smile at their misadventure, and some
misgivings as to how Mrs. Kenton might stand affected towards a guest
under the circumstances yielded to the thought of how he should make her
laugh at them both. "Good old Davis!" mused the colonel, and
affectionately linked his arm through that of his friend; and they
stamped through the brilliantly lighted streets gay with uniforms and
the picturesque costumes with which the Levant at Vienna encounters the
London and Paris fashions. Suddenly the consul arrested their movement.
"Didn't you say you were stopping at the Kaiserin Elisabeth?"

"Why, yes; certainly."

"Well, it's just around the corner, here." The consul turned him about,
and in another minute they walked under an archway into a court-yard,
and were met by the portier at the door of his room with an inquiring
obeisance.

Colonel Kenton started. The cap and the cap-band were the same, and it
was to all intents and purposes the same portier who had bowed him away
in the morning; but the face was different. On noting this fact Colonel
Kenton observed so general a change in the appointments and even
architecture of the place that, "Old fellow," he said to the consul,
"you've made a little mistake; this isn't the Kaiserin Elisabeth."

The consul referred the matter to the portier. Perfectly; that was the
Kaiserin Elisabeth. "Well, then," said the colonel, "tell him to have us
shown to my room." The portier discovered a certain embarrassment when
the colonel's pleasure was made known to him, and ventured something in
reply which made the consul smile.

"Look here, Kenton," he said, "_you've_ made a little mistake, this
time. You're not stopping at the Kaiserin Elisabeth!"

"Oh, pshaw! Come now! Don't bring the consular dignity so low as to
enter into a practical joke with a hotel porter. It won't do. We got
into Vienna this morning at three, and drove straight to the Kaiserin
Elisabeth. We had a room and fire, and breakfast about noon. Tell him
who I am, and what I say."

The consul did so, the portier slowly and respectfully shaking his