"Why, the gentleman who just went in."
"Poor soul!" says he, in a most aggravating manner, "how fast she do lose 'em. I wonder who pays for the headstones?"
"Do you know her?" asked I, for his words took me aback.
He shook his head at this, and then scratched it as though he were trying to think.
"Larst time," he said presently, "larst time she dropped one or two at Cannes, I'm thinking—— But, Lord love me, what's that?"
He stepped back on the pavement and looked up to the window of the room 113. I had heard the shindy as well as he—a regular scream, as though a woman was mad in her tantrums, and upon that a crash of glass and silence—while the porter and me, we just stared at one another.
"Votes for women!" says he, presently, and in so droll a way that I had to laugh in spite of myself; but before I could answer him, what do you think? Why, out come the old gentleman, just as calm and smiling as he had been ten minutes ago.
"You will drive me back to Monaco," he began. I asked him by whose orders; but at that he looked like a devil incarnate, and spoke so loud that I was right down frightened of him.
"You will drive me back to Monaco or spend the night in prison!" he shouted. "Now, which do you prefer?"
"Oh," says I, "in you get!" And in he did get, as I'm a Dutchman, and I drove him back to the hotel at Monaco—which was about the hour of one in the morning, and no mistake at all. When he got out at last, no babe in frocks could have looked more innocent, and he just handed me up a couple of louis, like a father blessing his only son.