"Well, Davis, you're a pretty consul!" That was all the colonel said, and though his friend was voluble in self-exculpation and condemnation, he did not answer him a word till they arrived at the police office. A few brief questions and replies between the commissary and the consul solved the long mystery, and Colonel Kenton had once more a hotel over his head. The commissary certified to the respectability of the place, but invited the colonel to prosecute the driver of the fiacre in behalf of the general public,—which seemed so right a thing that the colonel entered into it with zeal, and then suddenly relinquished it, remembering that he had not the rogue's number, that he had not so much as looked at him, and that he knew no more what manner of man he was than his own image in a glass. Under the circumstances, the commissary admitted that it was impossible, and as to bringing the landlord to justice, nothing could be proved against him.
"Will you ask him," said the colonel, "the outside price of a first-class assault and battery in Vienna?"
The consul put as much of this idea into German as the language would contain, which was enough to make the commissary laugh and shake his head warningly.
"It wouldn't do, he says, Kenton; it isn't the custom of the country."
"Very well, then, I don't see why we should occupy his time." He gave his hand to the commissary, whom he would have liked to embrace, and then hurried forth again with the consul. "There is one little thing that worries me still," he said. "I suppose Mrs. Kenton is simply crazy by this time."
"Is she of a very—nervous—disposition?" faltered the consul.
"Nervous? Well, if you could witness the expression of her emotions in regard to mice, you wouldn't ask that question, Davis."
At this desolating reply the consul was mute for a moment. Then he ventured: "I've heard—or read, I don't know which—that women have more real fortitude than men, and that they find a kind of moral support in an actual emergency that they wouldn't find in—mice."
"Pshaw!" answered the colonel. "You wait till you see Mrs. Kenton."
"Look here, Kenton," said the consul seriously, and stopping short. "I've been thinking that perhaps—I—I had better dine with you some other day. The fact is, the situation now seems so purely domestic that a third person, you know—"