“We’ll walk all the way,” she laughed, “and pick out the cheapest-looking hotels, and you’ll have to haggle like a German about terms.” “I’m awfully sick of myself for being such an ass,” he said gloomily. “It’s hateful to be short of cash in a strange land. I often used to run it pretty close. I remember once reaching home from this very place with only a halfpenny in my pocket. I remember I wanted a cup of tea on the train, more than I’d ever wanted one before, and I had to go without.” “Had you lost your purse then also?” asked Lois mischievously. “No,--just stopped longer than I’d planned and ran it a bit too fine.” They plodded into Oberwald just before dark, and stumped heavily up the steep wooden steps that led from the stony road to the door of the little Furka Hotel, fairly tired out with the day’s walk, which their diversion in search of Ray’s purse had extended, he reckoned, to close on five-and-twenty miles, and he proceeded to haggle with the depressed-looking landlady like any German of them all. She was glad enough to have them, however, even on their own terms, and gave them a quite sufficient supper, in which three different kinds of sausage, and veal in several guises, figured principally; and her bed-rooms, if somewhat meagrely furnished, were at all events clean. And they went up early to bed, tired with their long tramp and still tireder,--as Ray expressed it, concerning himself--of playing the fool with his money and throwing it about for some wiser man to pick up. The landlady knew nothing about the war, except that the diligences had stopped running because the horses were wanted, and most of the men had gone--to Thun, or Berne, she was not quite sure where, but it was all because of the talk of war, and she did not hold with any of it,--stopping business and upsetting everybody and everything. Oberwald, they decided, could not at the best of times be a very inspiring place. Under the shadow of the war-cloud it was dismal. They had early breakfast on the wooden platform outside the front door, while the deserted village below and about them roused itself, lazily and obviously against the grain, to its day’s work. But Ray was obviously not up to his usual standard, even though Lois had borrowed needle and thread from the landlady and had patched up his rents with deft fingers and visible enjoyment at being of service to him. “You’re not letting that old purse worry you, are you?” she had asked, as they sat over their coffee and cheese and honey on the wooden platform.