at our intrusion. By-and-by more men came in. Not one of them looked
like a tourist. Not a single woman appeared. These men seemed to
know each other with some intimacy, but I cannot say they were a very
talkative lot. The bald-headed man sat down gravely at the head of the
table. It all had the air of a family party. By-and-by, from one of the
vigorous servant-girls in national costume, we discovered that the place
was really a boarding-house for some English engineers engaged at the
works of the St. Gothard Tunnel; and I could listen my fill to
the sounds of the English language, as far as it is used at a
breakfast-table by men who do not believe in wasting many words on the
mere amenities of life.

This was my first contact with British mankind apart from the tourist
kind seen in the hotels of Zurich and Lucerne--the kind which has no
real existence in a workaday world. I know now that the bald-headed man
spoke with a strong Scotch accent. I have met many of his kind since,
both ashore and afloat. The second engineer of the steamer "Mavis", for
instance, ought to have been his twin brother. I cannot help thinking
that he really was, though for some reasons of his own he assured me
that he never had a twin brother. Anyway the deliberate bald-headed Scot
with the coal-black beard appeared to my boyish eyes a very romantic and
mysterious person.

We slipped out unnoticed. Our mapped-out route led over the Furca Pass
towards the Rhone Glacier, with the further intention of following down
the trend of the Hasli Valley. The sun was already declining when we
found ourselves on the top of the pass, and the remark alluded to was
presently uttered.

We sat down by the side of the road to continue the argument begun half