Thanks to Caerleon’s foresight in not sending word to his friend of their intended visit to Hungary, the tour was carried on in a very leisurely fashion indeed, and the brothers lounged through Europe, to use Cyril’s phrase, by unfrequented routes, spending now a day and now a week in old half-deserted towns, left high and dry by the stream of modern progress. There was nothing very inspiriting in such travelling to men who were neither antiquarians nor photographic maniacs; but Caerleon had a vague idea that he was improving his mind by visiting the scenes made famous by old German history, while Cyril was as well content to put in his time on the Continent in this way as in another. The person who suffered most was Wright, the groom, who found himself debarred in most places from communion with his kind owing to his ignorance of the language, and he rejoiced unfeignedly when the course of his masters’ wanderings brought them at last to Janoszwar, the town that lay nearest to Count Gyula Temeszy’s castle. Janoszwar was reached late one evening, and the travellers looked about them in some dismay as they drove to the hotel which had been recommended to them by some tourists they had met at Szegedin as the only one at which it was possible for English people to stay. The town was very small, and almost incredibly dirty, while, to put the finishing touch to their discomfiture, they found on arriving that they could not be received at the hotel. Its accommodation was extremely limited at the best of times, and at present all the rooms were in the occupation of the family of a Scythian officer of high rank, who was visiting the town for the sake of the mineral springs in its neighbourhood. This the landlord, a Hungarian who had spent several years in America, explained volubly and sorrowfully, and invited his intending guests to depart at once. But Cyril was very tired, and Caerleon, fearing that he might be going to fall ill again, tried to parley, pointing out that it was impossible for them to drive on eighteen miles farther to the Château Temeszy that night, and offering double the usual prices for the necessary accommodation. Still the landlord remained firm (though with deepening regret, as recognising that he had to deal with wealthy English _milords_), declaring that the Herr Oberst had assured him he would leave instantly if any other guests were admitted into the hotel. There seemed to be nothing to do but to seek some other resting-place, and Caerleon was just returning to the carriage in despair, when a white-haired man came slowly down the outer staircase of the inn, leaning heavily on a stick. “Here is the gracious Herr Oberst himself!” said the landlord; and Cyril, who had been acting as his brother’s interpreter for the worthy man’s Hungarian German and even less intelligible English, prepared to address the new-comer in Scythian, but this proved unnecessary.