Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/128

 mental development has been arrested since childhood."

"Ah, yes." She was silent for a moment or two, appearing to be occupied in adding "moron" to her vocabulary. Then she asked: "You are going to Italy, perhaps?"

"Later, I may," he said. "I came away for a winter's rest. I'd been working pretty hard, and I don't care for Florida or California. I may go over into Italy before I sail for home; but I thought I'd just run over to Algiers for a month or so."

"You have been there, Mr. Ogle?"

"Algiers?" he said unwillingly. "No. That's one reason I wanted to go there, because I hadn't been;—it's pleasant to go to a place where one hasn't been; and Algiers seems a little off the beaten track for tourists. Of course I hope to avoid tourists as much as possible."

"So?" she said, and seemed faintly surprised. "That is difficult nowadays, I am afraid, no matter where you go. Why do you object to them?"

"Why? Dear lady! Do you need more than the sample of their manners on this boat to answer that?"

"But on this boat we are all tourists," she said. "I am one myself."