him t'e whole nafy of
England, if he wish'!" Ah, what an honour for Weet-sur-Mer! And what a
blow for the Grand Hotel Splendide across the way!

Yet Monsieur Pelletan did not in the least understand how it had come to
pass; he suspected his partner of some sort of clairvoyance, of some
supernatural power of compelling events, and his admiration for him had
deepened to awe. But into this question he did not permit himself to
enter deeply; he was content to know that fame and prosperity were
returning with a rush to the Grand Hotel Royal. Already there had been a
score of applicants for rooms; the corridors were again assuming that
air of liveliness and gaiety which had characterised them in those
golden days when the August Prince of Zeit-Zeit had been his annual
guest. He was no longer ashamed to meet the proprietor of the Grand
Hotel Splendide face to face in the full day; he was a different person
from the despairing individual of the day before; in a word, he was no
longer in ruins! He had been restored, as so many ruins are, by the
hand of an American!

At this moment he held the centre of the stage, and it was easy to read
in his bearing the consciousness that he deserved the limelight. A strip
of crimson carpet had been stretched across the sand to the very water's
edge; on either side of it a dozen decorous footmen were aligned, and
between them Monsieur Pelletan proudly marched, his head in air, his
back very straight, preceding a big, hooded invalid's chair.

Immediately a murmur arose.

"He is ill then!"

"Why the chair?"

"He is coming to take the baths."

The murmur no doubt penetrated to the ears of the little Alsatian, but
he made no sign. He was aware that the envious eyes of the proprietor of
the Grand Hotel Splendide were upon him; he would show him that here was
a guest more majestic, more worthy of honour than even the Prince of
Zeit-Zeit!--a Highness, in short, so extraordinary as to cause that
August personage to resemble, in some incomprehensible way, the sum of
one franc fifty centimes! Otherwise there would have been no carpet, for
the sand was hard and dry. Otherwise, too, perhaps, Monsieur Pelletan
would have been content to permit his major-domo to represent him at the
water's edge, for he was not accustomed to exposing himself thus to the
sharp airs of the morning. His fat red cheeks and plump nose were
turning a dull purple--ah, how good would a glass of cognac taste!--but
he bore