I found a new-comer, a tall gentleman in a high black hat, whom I
immediately recognised as a compatriot. I had often seen him, or his
equivalent, in the hotel parlours of my native land. He apparently
supposed himself to be at the present moment in a hotel parlour; his
hat was on his head, or, rather, half off it--pushed back from his
forehead, and rather suspended than poised. He stood before a table
on which old newspapers were scattered, one of which he had taken up
and, with his eye-glass on his nose, was holding out at arm's-length.
It was that honourable but extremely diminutive sheet, the Journal de
Geneve, a newspaper of about the size of a pocket-handkerchief. As I
drew near, looking for my Galignani, the tall gentleman gave me, over
the top of his eye-glass, a somewhat solemn stare. Presently,
however, before I had time to lay my hand on the object of my search,
he silently offered me the Journal de Geneve.

"It appears," he said, "to be the paper of the country."

"Yes," I answered, "I believe it's the best."

He gazed at it again, still holding it at arm's-length, as if it had
been a looking-glass. "Well," he said, "I suppose it's natural a
small country should have small papers. You could wrap it up,
mountains and all, in one of our dailies!"

I found my Galignani, and went off with it into the garden, where I
seated myself on a bench in the shade. Presently I saw the tall
gentleman in the hat appear in one of the open windows of the salon,
and stand there with his hands in his pockets and his legs a little
apart. He looked very much bored, and--I don't know why--I
immediately began to feel sorry for him. He was not at all a