"I suppose he's a voter and a tax-payer, and he's got his feelings,"
replied poppa. The Senator would defend a voter and a tax-payer against
any imputation not actually criminal.

"I'm glad I'm not one of his lady-friends," momma continued. "I don't
think I _could_ make myself at home on that man-of-war under the
circumstances. But I daresay he'll drag them there with him. He seems to
be just that kind of a man."

"He's a very patriotic kind of a man," replied the Senator. "It's his
patriotism, don't you see, that's giving him all this trouble. It's been
outraged. Personally I consider Mr. Malt a very intelligent gentleman,
and if he'd given me an opening as big as the eye of a needle I'm the
camel that would have gone with him, Augusta."

This statement of the Senator's struck me as something to be acted upon.
If there was to be a constant possibility of his going off with any
chance American in regular communication with the United States, our
European tour would be a good deal less interesting than I had been led
to expect. While momma was getting ready for the Louvre, therefore, I
stepped down to the office and wired our itinerary to his partner in
Chicago. "Keep up daily communication by wire in detail," I telegraphed,
"forward copies all important letters care Peters." Peters was the
tourist agent who had undertaken to bless our comings and goings. I said
nothing whatever to poppa, but I felt a glow of conscious triumph when I
thought of Mr. Malt.

We stood and realised Paris on the pavement while the fiacre turned in
from the road and drew up for us. I had every intention of being
fascinated and so had momma. We had both heard often and often that good