"Ah, so! Yes. A great man, Andersen. So simple a man and now so international. It is a thing to marvel at. But I waste your time, Mr. Blair, I waste your time. What was I saying?"
"About English idiom."
"Ah, yes. To study English is my hubby."
"Hobby," Robert said, involuntarily.
"Hobby. Thank you. For my bread and butter I keep a hotel-and because my father and his father kept one before me-but for a hub… a hobby? yes; thank you-for a hobby I study the idiomatic English. So every day the newspapers that they leave about are brought to me."
"They?"
"The English visitors."
"Ah, yes."
"In the evening, when they have retired, the page collects the English papers and leaves them in my office. I am busy, often, and I do not have time to look at them, and so they go into the pile and when I have leisure I pick one up and study it. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Blair?"
"Perfectly, perfectly, Mr. Lange." A faint hope was rising again. Newspapers?