“Maybe I’d better,” said Cousin Egbert, “though I hate to leave this comfortable hotel and go out into the night air again.”
“I’ll have the right of this in the morning,” said Mrs. Effie. “Don’t think it’s going to stop here!” At this my door was pulled to and the key turned in the lock.
Frankly I am aware that what I have put down above is incredible, yet not a single detail have I distorted. With a quite devilish ingenuity they had fastened upon some true bits: I had suggested the change of hats with the cabby, I had wished to ride the giraffe, and the Tuttle person had secured my knife, but how monstrously untrue of me was the impression conveyed by these isolated facts. I could believe now quite all the tales I had ever heard of the queerness of Americans. Queerness, indeed! I went to bed resolving to let the morrow take care of itself.
Again I was awakened by a light flashing in my eyes, and became aware that Cousin Egbert stood in the middle of the room. He was reading from his notebook of art criticisms, with something of an oratorical effect. Through the half-drawn curtains I could see that dawn was breaking. Cousin Egbert was no longer wearing the cabby’s hat. It was now the flat cap of the Paris constable or policeman.
CHAPTER FOUR
The sight was a fair crumpler after the outrageous slander that had been put upon me by this elderly inebriate and his accomplice. I sat up at once, prepared to bully him down a bit. Although I was not sure that I engaged his attention, I told him that his reading could be very well done without and that he might take himself off. At this he became silent and regarded me solemnly.
“Why did Charing Cross the Strand? Because three rousing cheers,” said he.
Of course he had the wheeze all wrong and I saw that he should be in bed. So with gentle words I lured him to his own chamber. Here, with a quite unexpected perversity, he accused me of having kept him up the night long and begged now to be allowed to retire. This he did with muttered complaints of my behaviour, and was almost instantly asleep. I concealed the constable’s cap in one of his boxes, for I feared that he had not come by this honestly. I then returned to my own room, where for a long time I meditated profoundly upon the situation that now confronted me.