At which remark, ever so faint a droop of the mouth-corners changed the visage of a silent, middle-aged individual seated at an adjacent table; but his back was towards them, and they couldn't see it. "Oh, nonsense," retorted Mrs Bateman, breezily. "People who can't stand a little noise ought to go and live by themselves on a desert island." Here the droop on the lips of the silent one became a very pronounced sneer. "A fool of a woman, answering according to her folly," he thought. "Let me see it," cried Nidia. "Yes; it is a good joke, and perfectly true, too. I know I've wished that same hideous noise anywhere times out of number. I quite agree--it is amazing how they tolerate it. I wonder who the writer is. Positively I'd like to send him an anonymous letter of cordial thanks." This time the silent one laughed to himself, heartily and undisguisedly. "Write it to the _Argus_ instead and agree with him; that'll do just as well," said John Ames. "The fact of the matter is that the Malay vote is a power just here, and it would be about as easy to uproot Table Mountain itself as the diabolical snoek trumpet under discussion." "No, I don't agree with you in the least, Susie," declared Nidia. "I think unnecessary racket ought to be put down with a stern hand. Don't you remember all that abominable cannon nuisance when we were in the Bernese Oberland? You didn't like that any more than I did. Just fancy, Mr Ames. Some of the most picturesque turnings of the road, almost wherever we went, were tenanted by a miscreant volunteering to let off a horrid cannon for half a franc--to raise an echo." "I should have felt like offering him a whole one not to raise it," was the reply. "But the noble Switzer was shrewd enough to appraise his clients at their correct value. The English are never quite happy unless they are making a noise, unless it is when they are listening to one." "Yes; aren't they?" cried Nidia. "You see it in their fondness for banging doors and talking at the top of their voices on every landing at all hours of the day and night, and throwing their boots about and pounding up and down for hours over somebody else's head, in a house full of other people." The silent one hearkened approvingly. "That's no fool of a girl," he was saying to himself.