o mice, you wouldn't ask that question, Davis."

At this desolating reply the consul was mute for a moment. Then he
ventured: "I've heard--or read, I don't know which--that women have more
real fortitude than men, and that they find a kind of moral support in
an actual emergency that they wouldn't find in--mice."

"Pshaw!" answered the colonel. "You wait till you see Mrs. Kenton."

"Look here, Kenton," said the consul seriously, and stopping short.
"I've been thinking that perhaps--I--I had better dine with you some
other day. The fact is, the situation now seems so purely domestic that
a third person, you know--"

"Come along!" cried the colonel. "I want you to help me out of this
scrape. I'm going to leave that hotel as soon as I can put my things
together, and you've got to browbeat the landlord for me while I go up
and reassure my wife long enough to get her out of that den of thieves.
What did you say the scoundrelly name was?"

"The Gasthof zum Wilden Manne."

"And what does Wildun Manny mean?"

"The Sign of the Savage, we should make it, I suppose,--the Wild Man."

"Well, I don't know whether it was named after me or not; but if I'd
found that sign anywhere for the last four or five hours, I should have
known it for home. There hasn't been any wilder man in Vienna since the
town was laid out, I reckon; and I don't believe there ever was a wilder
woman anywhere than Mrs. Kenton is at this instant."

Arrived at the Sign of the Savage, Colonel Kenton left his friend below
with the portier, and mounting the stairs three steps at a time flew to
his room. Flinging open the door, he beheld his wife dressed in one of
her best silks, before the mirror, bestowing some last prinks, touching
her back hair with her hand and twitching the bow at her throat into
perfect place. She smiled at him in the glass, and said, "Where's
Captain Davis?"

"Captain Davis?" gasped the colonel, dry-tongued with anxiety and
fatigue. "Oh! _He's_ down there. He'll be up directly."

She turned and came forward to him: "How do you like it?" Then she
advanced near enough to encounter the moustache: "Why, how heated and
tired you look!"

"Yes, yes,--we've been walking. I--I'm rather late, ain't I, Bessie?"

"About an hour. I ordered dinner at six, and it's nearly seven now." The
colonel started; he had not dared to look at his watch, and he had
supposed it must be about ten o'clock; it seemed years since his search
for the hotel had b