“Yes,” he answered off-handedly, “a foreigner, an Italian, I think. He did not want to see you, but he seemed anxious to find out if you were staying here, and if you had met Mrs. and Miss Hutchinson. Of course I told him you were in the hotel, but as for the ladies, I knew nothing whatever about them.” “Did he give you his name?” “No, sir.” Karl described Bocci, and the inquiry clerk recognized him instantly. “That’s him,” he cried (people always do say “That’s him,” no one save a parson or a school-master uses the nominative); “I hope I did right in choking him off?” “You’re a wonder,” said Karl, laughing, and the clerk quitted us, feeling that he must have greatly mistaken the looks and utterances of this exceedingly nice young gentleman on the previous day. CHAPTER XII THE SCENE IN THE GARDEN COURT Of course, it was not to be expected that these morning hours of sunshine (London having embarked, as it turned out, on a giddy whirl of a fortnight’s fine weather) would find us in the tension to which we were strung over-night. Such a thing would be unreasonable, almost inhuman. The merry jingle of the hansoms coming through the open windows, the glimpses of omnibus tops freighted with wearers of flower hats and frivolous muslins, the gay horn-blown ta-ran-ta-ra of the coaches crossing Trafalgar Square or climbing the Haymarket--this gladsome medley must banish problems which appealed to either science or credulity. London was astir and enjoying itself, and who were we that we should resist its decorus gaiety? At that period motor-cars were still sufficiently uncommon in England to lend a piquant novelty to my suggestion that we should avail ourselves of a friend’s offer to me and borrow his car for the day. That was soon arranged. I sat with the chauffeur on the front seat, Karl and the ladies occupied the tonneau, and when Mrs. Hutchinson and her daughter had recovered from the silent dread of whirring past all other traffic and utilizing apparently impossible openings between heavy vehicles, they began to enjoy the ride immensely. We ran through Surbiton, Esher, and Guildford, over the Hog’s Back to Farnham, where we ate with the normal appetites of four healthy Britons. We came home by way of Aldershot, Virginia Water, Windsor Great Park and Staines, driving gloriously not only through the royal domain but through several Acts of Parliament as well.