, full of my project, "and I'm thinking of
trying."

"What do you meant" asked the Boy, looking rather startled.

"Let's have breakfast out of doors on a little table under the trees,
and I'll tell you. Here's one in the shade, and away from the--er--a
certain chamois-ness in the air." I pulled up chairs, and raised my
hand to a hovering waiter. "What I mean to say is," I went on, "that
I'm going to make the ascent as soon as I can arrange it. You won't
mind waiting for me a couple of days, will you?--or, of course, you
can travel with the Contessa if you like. No doubt she would be
delighted to have you."

"You're going up--Mont Blanc?"

"I am, my Kid."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because--you might be killed."

"Good heavens, one would think I was Icarus, gluing a pair of wax
wings on to my shoulder-blades for a flight into ether. I'm not
exactly a novice at the game, you know, though I haven't done any
snow-climbing. Why, you little donkey, you look pale. What's the
matter with you?"

"Do you know what happened this morning--or rather last night?" the
Boy replied to my question with another. "Did any of the hotel people
tell you?"

"No. Don't be mysterious before breakfast. It isn't good for the
digestion."

"Don't joke. I wasn't going to say anything about it till afterwards,
in case you hadn't heard; but now I will. The _femme de chambre_ told
me. The news has just come that a young guide has died of exhaustion
on the mountain, between the Observatory and the Grands Mulets. Two
others who were with him had to leave him lying dead, after dragging
the body down a long way."

At this inappropriate moment, our coffee, rolls, and honey were set
before us, and the waiter, being an accomplished linguist, like most
of his singularly gifted and enterprising kind, had heard and
understood the last sentence. Bursting with gruesome information, he
could not resist lightening himself of the burden, for our benefit and
his own. "You can see the dead man lying on the snow, far up on the
mountain," said he eagerly, "if you go into the town and look through
one of the telescopes. I have seen him already; he is like a small,
dark packet on the white ground, wrapped in his coat."

My appetite for breakfast suddenly dwindled, but not so my appetite
for the climb. I was very sorry that a man had died on the mountain,
but I could not bring him to life again by remaining on low levels,
and so I remarked when the Boy asked