Hephzy smiled, grimly. “He'd better be,” she declared. “The way everybody was flyin' around when I first got here after comin' from Interlaken, and the way the help jabbered and hunched up their shoulders when I asked questions made me so fidgety I couldn't keep still. I wanted an egg for breakfast, that first mornin' and when the waiter brought it, it was in the shell, the way they eat eggs over here. I can't eat 'em that way--I'm no weasel--and I told the waiter I wanted an egg cup. Nigh as I could make out from his pigeon English he was tellin' me there was a cup there. Well, there was, one of those little, two-for-a-cent contraptions, just big enough to stick one end of the egg into. 'I want a big one,' says I. 'We, Madame,' says he, and off he trotted. When he came back he brought me a big EGG, a duck's egg, I guess 'twas. Then I scolded and he jabbered some more and by and by he went and fetched this Monsieur Louis man. He could speak English, thank goodness, and he was real nice, in his French way. He begged my pardon for the waiter's stupidness, said he was a new hand, and the like of that, and went on apologizin' and bowin' and smilin' till I almost had a fit. “'For mercy sakes!' I says, 'don't say any more about it. If that last egg hadn't been boiled 'twould have hatched out an--an ostrich, or somethin' or other, by this time. And it's stone cold, of course. Have this--this jumpin'-jack of yours bring me a hot egg--a hen's egg--opened, in a cup big enough to see without spectacles, and tell him to bring some cream with the coffee. At any rate, if there isn't any cream, have him bring some real milk instead of this watery stuff. I might wash clothes with that, for I declare I think there's bluin' in it, but I sha'n't drink it; I'd be afraid of swallowin' a fish by accident. And do hurry!' “He went away then, hurryin' accordin' to orders, and ever since then he's been bobbin' up to ask if 'Madame finds everything satisfactory.' I suppose likely I shouldn't have spoken as I did, he means well--it isn't his fault, or the waiter's either, that they can't talk without wavin' their hands as if they were givin' three cheers--but I was terribly nervous that mornin' and I barked like a tied-up dog. Oh dear, Hosy! if ever I missed you and your help it's in this blessed country.” Frances laughed at all this; she seemed just then to be in high spirits; but I thought, or imagined, that her high spirits were assumed for our benefit. At the first hint of questioning concerning her own life, where she lodged or what her plans might be, she rose and announced that she must go.