What had happened to him, he did not tell me, and I went away, glad to have secured quarters which seemed to be almost the ideal thing. And I still wondered where I could have known an individual so like him that I always had the impression of having seen Doblana before.
The next day, when I moved in, Fanny, the maid, a fair plump little object, showed me in. She was a young chatterbox, but a friendly one. Mr. Doblana was out, and Fräulein was not visible; but she, Fanny, would make me comfortable, which she did in fact with much obligingness. In consequence she was tipped accordingly.
You see, I was not what one may call spoiled. Only a year before, when I had been staying for a month with the Dickses at Bedford (Dicks senior is an intimate friend of the senior partner of Daniel Cooper & Co., Ltd., and has an only daughter, besides a fine estate at Bedford), well, I was also shown in by a housemaid, but who treated me as if she were a duchess, which perhaps she was, and who carried the hot water for my use as if she were the Archbishop of Canterbury going to anoint the King. (By the way: God save him and give him victory!)—Now, if I had tipped that Midland goddess with gold, why should I not make friends with plain Fanny on a silver basis?
Fanny kissed my hand and I felt silly. I was not yet used to the shameless way in which Viennese people of the lower class throw themselves on any hand they may think kissable, viz.: capable of kissing back, the kiss of a hand being hard, round, and having a metallic sound when you let it fall.
Anyhow, that two crown piece conquered Fanny. Parents, when reading this, should not feel incensed because of the extravagance of their children. An Austrian crown is worth less than a shilling, and in stating this I do not think only of the Imperial crown.—When, an hour later, I left to take my lesson with old Hammer, my things were in order, and all I could do was heroically to resist my wish to tip Fanny again when I asked her to oil my door, which was creaking badly.
You know that to go out I had to cross the salon. As I was halfway through it, the door opposite mine, the one which was leading to Mr. Doblana's room, was suddenly closed. Perhaps my opening the door of my own room had caused a draught, Vienna being always a windy place, and thus the opposite door had been slammed. But instinctively I felt that there was something else. Miss Doblana, who was, may be, not so unwell as it pleased her father to say, had had, no doubt, a fit of curiosity and had watched me. I imagined that, her hair being adorned with hair-curlers (I did not know then that this achievement of Western civilisation had not yet reached oriental Vienna), she had rapidly hidden herself from my attention.
I ought to tell you that this was quite unnecessary. There were plenty of nice girls in Vienna whom I had leisure to look at, but somehow I had no mind for them. Much less for a spinster who, to judge from her father's age, was probably ten years my elder and wore hair-curlers. In fact, I had not been able to forget my fair Comtesse of Salzburg fame; and I lived in an unceasing hope that I might see her again.
A voice to my right calls my name. But there is no-one to my right. And then a shout of laughter resounds to my left. It is Private Pringle, who in civil life is a ventriloquist and enjoys playing such tricks. So do we. To-day he plays beside this the part of a postman, and he has a letter for me. It is from Daniel Cooper and consort. The consort treats me as a naughty boy, because I write so little, and could I not tell her some pretty story about the war? And whether I was careful and avoided these wicked shells?