"Don't you worry," said Mr. Blithers confidently. "They are not likely to throw rocks at the goose that lays the golden egg." If he had paused to think, he would not have uttered such a careless indictment. The time would come when she was to remind him of his thoughtless admission, omitting, however, any reference to the golden egg.
The crowd was big, immobile, surly. It lined the sidewalks in the vicinity of the station and stared with curious, half-closed eyes at the portly capitalist and his party, which, by the way, was rendered somewhat imposing in size by augmentation in the shape of lawyers from Paris and London, clerks and stenographers from the Paris office, and four plain clothes men who were to see to it that Midas wasn't blown to smithereens by envious anarchists; to say nothing of a lady's maid, a valet, a private secretary and a doctor. (Mr. Blithers always went prepared for the worst.)
He was somewhat amazed and disgruntled by the absence of silk-hat ambassadors from the Castle, with words of welcome for him on his arrival. There was a plentiful supply of policemen but no cabinet ministers. He was on the point of censuring his secretary for not making it clear to the government that he was due to arrive at such and such an hour and minute, when a dapper young man in uniform—he couldn't tell whether he was a patrolman or a captain—came up and saluted.
"I am William W. Blithers," said he sharply.
"I am an official guide and interpreter, sir," announced the young man suavely. "May I have the honour—"
"Not necessary—not necessary at all," exploded Mr. Blithers. "I can get about without a guide."
"You will require an interpreter, sir," began the other, only to be waved aside.
"Any one desiring to speak to me will have to do it in English," said Mr. Blithers, and marched out to the carriages.
He was in some doubt at first, but as his carriage passed swiftly between the staring ranks on the sidewalks, he began to doff his hat and bow to the right and the left. His smiles were returned by the multitude, and so his progress was more or less of a triumph after all.
At the Regengetz he found additional cause for irritation. The lords and nobles who should have met him at the railway station were as conspicuously absent in the rotunda of the hotel. No one was there to receive him except the ingratiating manager of the establishment, who hoped that he had had a pleasant trip and who assured him that it would not be more than a couple of hours before his rooms would be vacated by the people who now had them but were going away as soon as the procession had passed.