Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/26

Rh "What? Almost everything! I have had to go about these towns to comply with the bally entail, as I told you, so I had observed you even before you joined with me. And how would you do? You would burst into the hotels and inns, where you Americans stop, and stand about glancing over new arrivals. You would search through all the bookings and trace the lists of the travelling Americans, and even look them up at the banks. Then, instead of showing any sort of interest in the cathedrals, to see which your countrymen and, particularly, your countrywomen tour through these towns, you seemed merely to be estimating the visitors to them. The remainder of the time you would mope about—planning or plotting, it might appear—and that night some rich American, carefully chosen from the travellers in the inns, would be most skilfully plundered—and you would move on. And then—"

But the Englishman had suddenly become conscious, as he elaborated his description, that 8