“It’s too bad to be bothered by a foreigner like him,” he muttered. “I meant to have a regular natural shower-bath,”—he glanced up at the beautiful spray fall beyond him as he said this to himself—“but now I can’t have it, with this fellow watching me, and it’ll only mean a scrub and rub.”
He stopped and turned round again, to find Pierre in his old position just the same distance behind.
“I tell you what it is, old chap: if you don’t shut up that mouth, I shall be tempted to pitch a round stone into it; and if it wasn’t for fear of getting up war between England and Switzerland, I’d come and punch your head. Here, I say! Do you hear? Be off!”
Pierre stared.
“Oh! I know what you are,” grumbled Saxe: “you’re a cretin—an idiot. I suppose there are lots of you in the valleys. Here—hi! Catch!”
Saxe took a twenty-cent nickel coin from his pocket, and took aim.
“I’ll pitch it right into his mouth,” he said to himself. “There you are, old chap! Don’t swallow it!”
He threw the coin so truly, that if Pierre had stood still it would, in all probability, have gone where it was aimed. But the man’s action was as quick as that of a monkey. With one sharp dash of the hand he caught the piece, scowled as he found that it was not half a florin, and then thrust it into his pocket and stared.
“Oh my!” muttered Saxe as he went on; “he’s worse than that lost dog, who came and said to me that I was his master, and that he’d never leave me as long as I lived. I hope this chap isn’t going to follow me all the time we’re here.”
He stopped once more.