“Does he?” said Fordham. “Well, look here. Tell him—this time without my compliments—that there are a few people at this end of the room whose convenience is of as much importance as his own, and that they are equally resolved that this window shall stand open. There—leave it alone. If you do shut it we shall open it again at once.”
The waiter paused again very irresolute, shrugged his shoulders, smirked, shrugged his shoulders again, then skipped away. Watching him, they had no difficulty in locating the offender—a lank-haired bespectacled Teuton occupying the remotest possible seat from the window in dispute. He, in wrath, vehemently evoked the proprietor, who, however, at that moment was not on hand.
“That Battle of the Windows is an oft-recurring phase of hotel life out here,” remarked Fordham. “No man is more absolutely unprejudiced against Continental nationalities than myself: yet it is a fact that whenever there is anything like a respectable sprinkling of Germans or Frenchmen in these hotels, they invariably insist upon having the room hermetically sealed all through dinner-time.”
“The deuce they do!” growled the old General. “But do you mean to tell me, sir, that a few of these unbarbered music-masters are going to cram their confounded love of fustiness down our throats?”
“Well, I’ve seen more than one lively episode over that window question,” replied Fordham. “And the fact of that one fellow trying it on just now is sufficient proof that the tradition exists—and exists pretty strongly too.”
“But don’t you think they may perhaps, after all, be more susceptible to cold than we English?” struck in the Infliction.
“Undoubtedly,” assented Fordham, blandly, preparing to beat a retreat from the table under cover of his reply, for the dessert had already gone round, and the room was emptying fast.
“By Jove, Fordham, but isn’t it a deuced rum thing they should have turned up here?” said Phil, as the two made their way to the promenoir for a cigar.
“She, I suppose you mean. No, it isn’t particularly rum. I knew they were bound here all along.”
“What—on board the steamer? No. How did you know?”