race under
the vines, smoking a briar-root pipe with that solemn air whereby the
Englishman abroad proclaims to the world that he owns the scenery. There
is something almost phenomenal about an Englishman's solid
self-satisfaction when he is alone with his pipe. Every nation has its
own way of smoking. There is a hasty and vicious manner about the
Frenchman's little cigarette of pungent black tobacco; the Italian
dreams over his rat-tail cigar; the American either eats half of his
Havana while he smokes the other, or else he takes a frivolous delight
in smoking delicately and keeping the white ash whole to the end; the
German surrounds himself with a cloud, and, god-like, meditates within
it; there is a sacrificial air about the Asiatic's narghileh, as the
thin spire rises steadily and spreads above his head; but the
Englishman's short briar-root pipe has a powerful individuality of its
own. Its simplicity is Gothic, its solidity is of the Stone Age, he
smokes it in the face of the higher civilisation, and it is the badge of
the conqueror. A man who asserts that he has a right to smoke a pipe
anywhere, practically asserts that he has a right to everything. And it
will be admitted that Englishmen get a good deal.

Moreover, as soon as the Englishman has finished smoking he generally
goes and does something else. Brook knocked the ashes out of his pipe,
and immediately went in search of the head waiter, to whom he explained
with some difficulty that he wished to be placed next to the two ladies
who sat last on the side away from the staircase at the public table.
The waiter tried to explain that the two ladies, though they had been
some time in the hotel, insisted upon being always last on that side
because there was more air. But Brook was firm, and he strengthened his
argument with coin, and got what he wanted. He also made the waiter
point out to him the Bowrings' name on the board which held the names of
the guests. Then he asked the way to Ravello, turned up his trousers
round his ankles, and marched off at a swinging pace down the steep
descent towards the beach, which he had to cross before climbing the
hill to the old town. Nothing in his outward manner or appearance
betrayed that he had been through a rather serious crisis on the
preceding evening.

That was what struck Clare Bowring when, to her dismay, he sat down
beside her at the midday meal. She could not help glancing at him as he
took his seat. His eyes