ery big cigars and very little
stories, done what it could for his identity. There were signs in him,
though none of them plaintive, of always paying for others; and the
principal one perhaps was just this failure of type. It was with this
that he paid, rather than with fatigue or waste; and also doubtless a
little with the effort of humour--never irrelevant to the conditions,
to the relations, with which he was acquainted.

He gurgled his joy as they rolled through the happy streets; he
declared that his trip was a regular windfall, and that he wasn't
there, he was eager to remark, to hang back from anything: he didn't
know quite what Sally had come for, but HE had come for a good time.
Strether indulged him even while wondering if what Sally wanted her
brother to go back for was to become like her husband. He trusted that
a good time was to be, out and out, the programme for all of them; and
he assented liberally to Jim's proposal that, disencumbered and
irresponsible--his things were in the omnibus with those of the
others--they should take a further turn round before going to the
hotel. It wasn't for HIM to tackle Chad--it was Sally's job; and as it
would be like her, he felt, to open fire on the spot, it wouldn't be
amiss of them to hold off and give her time. Strether, on his side,
only asked to give her time; so he jogged with his companion along
boulevards and avenues, trying to extract from meagre material some
forecast of his catastrophe. He was quick enough to see that Jim
Pocock declined judgement, had hovered quite round the outer edge of
discussion and anxiety, leaving all analysis of their question to the
ladies alone and now only feeling his way toward some small droll
cynicism. It broke out afresh, the cynicism--it had already shown a
flicker--in a but slightly deferred: "Well, hanged if I would if I
were he!"

"You mean you wouldn't in Chad's place--?"

"Give up this to go back and boss the advertising!" Poor Jim, with his
arms folded and his little legs out in the open fiacre, drank in the
sparkling Paris noon and carried his eyes from one side of their vista
to the other. "Why I want to come right out and live here myself. And
I want to live while I AM here too. I feel with YOU--oh you've been
grand, old man, and I've twigged--that it ain't right to worry Chad. I
don't mean to persecute him; I couldn't in conscience. It's thanks to
you at any rate that I'm here, and I'm sure I'm much