“He is annoying her!” exclaimed Carlton, delightedly, as he hurried forward. “It looks as though my chance had come at last.” But as he approached the stranger he saw, to his great disappointment, that he had nothing more serious to deal with than one of the international army of amateur photographers, who had been stalking the Princess as a hunter follows an elk, or as he would have stalked a race-horse or a prominent politician or a Lord Mayor’s show, everything being fish that came within the focus of his camera. A helpless statue and an equally helpless young girl were both good subjects and at his mercy. He was bending over, with an anxious expression of countenance, and focussing his camera on the back of the Princess Aline, when Carlton approached from the rear. As the young man put his finger on the button of the camera, Carlton jogged his arm with his elbow, and pushed the enthusiastic tourist to one side.
“I say,” exclaimed that individual, “look where you’re going, will you? You spoiled that plate.”
“I’ll spoil your camera if you annoy that young lady any longer,” said Carlton, in a low voice.
The photographer was rapidly rewinding his roll, and the fire of pursuit was still in his eye.
“She’s a Princess,” he explained, in an excited whisper.
“Well,” said Carlton, “even a Princess is entitled to some consideration. Besides,” he said, in a more amicable tone, “you haven’t a permit to photograph on the Acropolis. You know you haven’t.” Carlton was quite sure of this, because there were no such permits.
The amateur looked up in some dismay. “I didn’t know you had to have them,” he said. “Where can I get one?”
“The King may give you one,” said Carlton. “He lives at the palace. If they catch you up here without a license, they will confiscate your camera and lock you up. You had better vanish before they see you.”
“Thank you. I will,” said the tourist, anxiously.
“Now,” thought Carlton, smiling pleasantly, “when he goes to the palace with that box and asks for a permit, they’ll think he is either a dynamiter or a crank, and before they are through with him his interest in photography will have sustained a severe shock.”