Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/157

Rh This reply surprised me. I had expected the restaurant-keeper to express regret at his disappearance, yet he spoke as though he had been at work as usual on the previous day.

"May I have a liqueur brandy?" I asked, seeing that I would be compelled to take something. "Perhaps you will have one with me?"

"Ach no! But a kummel — yes, I will have a kummel!" And he filled our glasses, and tossed off his own at a single gulp, smacking his lips after it, for the average Russian dearly loves his national decoction of carraway seeds.

"You find Olinto a good servant, I suppose?" I said, for want of something else to say.

"Excellent. The Italians are the best waiters in the world. I am Russian, but I dare not employ a Russian waiter. These English would not come to my shop if I did."

I looked around, and it struck me that the trade of the place mainly consisted in chops and steaks for chance customers at mid-day, and tea and cake for those swarms of women who each afternoon buzz around that long line of windows of the "world's provider." I could see that his was a cheap trade, as revealed by the printed notice stuck upon one of the long fly-blown mirrors: "Ices 4d. and 6d."

"How long has Olinto been with you?" I inquired.

"About a year — perhaps a little more. I trust him implicitly, and I leave him in charge when I go away for holidays. He does not get along very well with the cook — who is Milanese. These Italians