of the Hotel National to indite a dispatch of spartan brevity to
"Madame Louison" at the Hotel Faucon, Lausanne. "The Cook's Agency
tell me that the London draft will be paid to-morrow. Francois
will deliver me the photographs, and relate his selected historical
excerpts, and then I will be ready to have a duel of wits with
Madame Berthe." So he simply telegraphed to Lausanne:

"Successful--arrive to-morrow night." He then dispatched the head
porter with the telegram, and while enjoying his parting brandy and
soda, was suddenly made aware of the near proximity of Mr. Phineas
Forbes of Chicago, who was anxiously drinking cocktail after
cocktail in a moody unrest. The lank Chicago capitalist waved his
tufted chin beard dejectedly as he answered the Briton's casual
salutation. "I'm worried about the girls," he simply said. "They're
off on the lake, with the Marquis de Santa Marina and that French
chap, the Count de Roquefort. I don't more than half like it." The
hour was late, and the heavy father glued his eyes upon the darkened
window pane. "Is Madame Forbes with them?" murmured the Englishman.

"Oh, Lord, no!" simply said the Illinois capitalist. "The girls
are used to going out alone with their gentlemen friends, but I'm
afraid that these two damned useless foreigners will upset the boat
and drown my two girls. I wouldn't care a rap if they were alone.
But these Dago noblemen are no good--at least that's my experience.
I indorsed a draft for one of them that Mommer and the girls dragged
up to the house last year. Came back marked 'N. G.'--I wish to God
the girls wouldn't pick up these fellows."

Alan Hawke hazarded the inquiry "Why do you permit it?"