Chapter 2 - Page 2

arm's-length, as if it had
been a looking-glass. "Well," he said, "I suppose it's natural a
small country should have small papers. You could wrap it up,
mountains and all, in one of our dailies!"

I found my Galignani, and went off with it into the garden, where I
seated myself on a bench in the shade. Presently I saw the tall
gentleman in the hat appear in one of the open windows of the salon,
and stand there with his hands in his pockets and his legs a little
apart. He looked very much bored, and--I don't know why--I
immediately began to feel sorry for him. He was not at all a
picturesque personage; he looked like a jaded, faded man of business.
But after a little he came into the garden and began to stroll about;
and then his restless, unoccupied carriage, and the vague,
unacquainted manner in which his eyes wandered over the place, seemed
to make it proper that, as an older resident, I should exercise a
certain hospitality. I said something to him, and he came and sat
down beside me on my bench, clasping one of his long knees in his
hands.

"When is it this big breakfast of theirs comes off?" he inquired.
"That's what I call it--the little breakfast and the big breakfast.
I never thought I should live to see the time when I should care to
eat two breakfasts. But a man's glad to do anything over here."

"For myself," I observed, "I find plenty to do."

He turned his head and glanced at me with a dry, deliberate, kind-
looking eye. "You're getting used to the life, are you?"

"I like the life very much," I answered, laughing.

"How long have you tried it?"

"Do you mean in this place?"

"Well, I mean anywhere. It seems to me pretty much the same all
over."

"I have been in this house only a fortnight," I said.

"Well, what should you say, from what you have seen?" my companion
asked.

"Oh," said I, "you can see all there is immediately. It's very
simple."

"Sweet simplicity, eh? I'm afraid my two ladies will find it too
simple."

"Everything is very good," I went on. "And Madame Beaurepas is a
charming old woman. And then it's very cheap."

"Cheap, is it?" my friend repeated meditatively.

"Doesn't it strike you so?" I asked. I thought it very possible he
had not inquired the terms. But he appeared not to have heard me; he
sat there, clasping his knee and blinking, in a contemplative manner,
at the sunshine.

"Are you from the United States, sir?" he presently demanded, turning
his head again.