iged to
relieve his mind by saying that it looked too pronounced.

"It's all right for an Austrian," said Jimmie, wagging his head. "But
everybody knows you are an American, and it doesn't look right."

"Doesn't it go with my costume, Jimmie?" demanded Bee. "Look me over!
Doesn't it match?"

Alas for Jimmie! It _did_ match. Bee's carrying it simply looked saucy,
not loud. I couldn't have carried it--I should have tripped over it, and
fallen down. Mrs. Jimmie would have dropped or broken it. Bee and that
stick simply fitted each other--there in Ischl! Nowhere else.

At luncheon, just as we were going out, the four officers came in. We
passed them in the doorway. Bee looked desperate. They lined up to allow
us to pass, and for a moment I thought Bee was going to snatch one, and
make her escape. But she compromised, on seeing them seat themselves at
the table we had just left, by sending Jimmie back to look for her
handkerchief.

"If that doesn't fetch an acquaintance," Bee's look seemed to say, "with
Jimmie burrowing around on the floor among their boots and spurs, I
shall have but a poor opinion of Austrian ingenuity."

Jimmie was gone half an hour. When he came back, his face was too
innocent. He seated himself quietly, and after saying, "It wasn't there,
Bee," he went on smoking placidly.

Now, any one who knows anything about anything, cannot fail to admit
that my sister ought either to be at the head of Tammany Hall or the
army. She gave one look at Jimmie's suspiciously bland countenance, then
gathered up her gloves, her veil and stick, and went slowly up-stairs,
apparently in a brown study.

Jimmie is clever, but he is no match for a clever woman. No man _is_,
for that matter.

The moment she was out of sight, he began to chuckle.

"Great Scott," he whispered, bringing our three heads together by a
gesture. "If Bee knew that all those officers we just passed went right
in, and sat down at the very table we left, so that when she sent me for
her handkerchief I had to run bang into them, I wonder if she would have
gone up-stairs so calmly!"

"Why didn't you tell her?" I cried.

"I was going to--after I had got her curiosity up a little. They were
very polite, and nothing would do but I must sit down, and have a glass
of beer with them. I didn't want that, so I took a cigar, and they all
nearly fell over themselves to offer me one--from the most beautiful
cigar cases you ever saw. That tall chap with th