Page:Following the Equator (Mark Twain).djvu/208

200 "It seemed to anger him. I don't know why; and he thundered out:

Which fox? Why, the fox? Which way did the fox go?'

"I said, with great gentleness—even argumentatively:

If you could be a little more definite—a little less vague—because I am a stranger, and there are many foxes, as you will know even better than I, and unless I know which one it is that you desire to identify, and—'

You're certainly the damdest idiot that has escaped in a thousand years!' and he snatched his great horse around as easily as I would snatch a cat, and was away like a hurricane. A very excitable man.

"I went back to Mrs. Blank, and she was excited, too—oh, all alive. She said:

He spoke to you!—didn't he?'

Yes, it is what happened.'

I knew it! I couldn't hear what he said, but I knew he spoke to you! Do you know who it was? It was Lord C.,—and he is Master of the Buckhounds! Tell me—what do you think of him?'

Him? Well, for sizing-up a stranger, he's got the most sudden and accurate judgment of any man I ever saw.'

"It pleased her. I thought it would."

G. got away from Nauheim just in time to escape being shut in by the quarantine-bars on the frontiers; and so did we, for we left the next day. But G. had a great deal of trouble in getting by the Italian custom-house, and we should have fared likewise but for the thoughtfulness of our consul-general in Frankfort. He introduced me to the Italian consul-general, and I brought away from that consulate a letter which made our way smooth. It was a dozen lines merely commending me in a general way to the courtesies of servants in his Italian Majesty's service, but it was more powerful than it looked. In