going on very earnestly indeed in German. What keeps
them listening is that another voice comes in occasionally--a voice
with more than mere earnestness in it; a voice rather of anguish
under control. Then both voices pause, and silence comes suddenly.

"Who's the other party?"

"In a blue soote, livin' in one of the sea-'ouses down on the beach.
Big customer. Prodooces a rousin' impression!"

"Is that his daughter that swims?... That's him--coming away."

But it isn't. It is the Baron, wrathful, shouting, swearing, neither
in German nor English, but in either or both. Where is that tamned
kellner? Why does he not answer the pell? This is an _abscheuliches_
hotel, and every one connected with it is an _Esel_. What he wants
is some cognac and a doctor forthwith. His friend has fainted, and
he has been pressing the tamned puddon, and nobody comes.

The attitude of the lady with the earrings epitomizes the complete
indifference of a hotel-keeper to the private lives of its guests
nowadays. That bell must be seen to, she says. Otherwise she is
callous. The respectable waiter hurries for the cognac, and returns
with a newly-drawn bottle and two glasses to the smoking-room, to find
that the gentleman has recovered and won't have any. He suggests that
our young man could step round for Dr. Maccoll; but the proposed
patient says, "The devil fly away with Dr. Maccoll!" which doesn't
look like docility. The respectable waiter takes note of his
appearance, and reports of it to his principal on dramatic grounds,
not as a matter into which human sympathies enter.

"Very queer he looks. Doo to reaction, or the coatin's of the stomach.
Affectin' the action of the heart.... No, there's nobody else in the
smoking-room. Party with the 'ook instead of a hand's watching of 'em
play penny-pool in the billiard-room." Surely a tale to bring a tear
to the eye of sensibility! But not to one that sees in mankind only
a thing that comes and goes and pays its bill--or doesn't. The lady in
the bureau appears to listen slightly to the voices that come afresh
from the smoking-room, but their duration is all she is concerned
with. "He's going now," she says. He is; and he does look queer--very
queer. His companion does not leave him at the door, but walks out
into the air with him without his hat, speaking to him volubly
and earnestly, always in German. His speech suggests affectionate
exhortation, and the way he takes his arm is affectionate.