Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/525

 bumped him over the bad roads of the outskirts of Tunis.

She passed down the coast and was borne evenly out to sea, still standing where she was and still smiling as she swept on westward. He, with his anxious face to the Orient, drove miserably into Tunis, carrying his entire fortune, now equal to twenty-eight American dollars, in his pocket.

Of this, he must give Etienne a pourboire, well understood, amounting to not less than twenty dollars; which would leave nothing inspirational for a courageous confrontation of the staff of a fashionable hotel. And the nearer the landaulet drew him to the absolutely necessary interview with Tinker the more was his soul filled with a grovelling anguish.

Etienne stopped the car at a street corner, descended, and opened the door.

"Hôtel, Monsieur?"

"Uh—" Ogle coughed, swallowed, coughed again, and said: "Vous savez—vous savez est-ce-que M. Le Seyeux, le courier de M. Tangkaire, a dit à vous à quel hôtel M. Cayzac avait engagé des appartements pour M. Tangkaire?"

"Oui, oui, Monsieur. Je sais bien que"