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 He gave coins to the gypsy and to the Arab beggars, repulsed the guide, and discovered among some waiting automobiles the omnibus and porter of the hotel in which he had engaged rooms by cable. The porter, a handsome person with brass buttons upon his bright blue coat and gilt braid round his cap, made everything simple for the traveller, relieved him of all care for his bags and trunk, put him into the best of the automobiles, and bowed profoundly as it moved away.

It moved rapidly—Ogle at once perceived that he would have no complaint to make of slow driving in Algiers—and he was borne flying up and up hill through the newer French part of the town. The streets that he saw, though foreign enough to him, might have been streets in almost any city in France, except for the palm trees here and there and the veiled women and Arabs among the French pedestrians on the pavements and in the trolley-cars. The playwright's most exotic journey until now had been to Montreal, and all he saw upon this swift drive wore for him the air of exciting novelty; he took delight in the apéritif drinkers upon the pavements before the cafés; in the strolling French cavalry officers, brilliant shapings of colour, though not so brilliant