He gazed at it again, still holding it at arm’s-length as if it had been a looking-glass. “Well,” he concluded, “I suppose it’s natural a small country should have small papers. You could wrap this one up, mountains and all, in one of our dailies!” I found my _Galignani_ and went off with it into the garden, where I seated myself on a bench in the shade. Presently I saw the tall gentleman in the hat appear at one of the open windows of the salon and stand there with his hands in his pockets and his legs a little apart. He looked infinitely bored, and—I don’t know why—I immediately felt sorry for him. He hadn’t at all—as M. Pigeonneau, for instance, in his way, had it—the romantic note; he looked just a jaded, faded, absolutely voided man of business. But after a little he came into the garden and began to stroll about; and then his restless helpless carriage and the vague unacquainted manner in which his eyes wandered over the place seemed to make it proper that, as an older resident, I should offer him a certain hospitality. I addressed him some remark founded on our passage of a moment before, and he came and sat down beside me on my bench, clasping one of his long knees in his hands. “When is it this big breakfast of theirs comes off?” he inquired. “That’s what I call it—the little breakfast and the big breakfast. I never thought I should live to see the time when I’d want to eat two breakfasts. But a man’s glad to do anything over here.” “For myself,” I dropped, “I find plenty to do.” He turned his head and glanced at me with an effect of bottomless wonder and dry despair. “You’re getting used to the life, are you?” “I like the life very much,” I laughed. “How long have you tried it?” “Do you mean this place?” “Well, I mean anywhere. It seems to me pretty much the same all over.” “I’ve been in this house only a fortnight,” I said. “Well, what should you say, from what you’ve seen?” my companion asked. “Oh you can see all there is at once. It’s very simple.” “Sweet simplicity, eh? Well then I guess my two ladies will know right off what’s the matter with it.” “Oh everything’s very good,” I hastened to explain. “And Madame Beaurepas is a charming old woman. And then it’s very cheap.” “Cheap, is it?” my friend languidly echoed. “Doesn’t it strike you so?” I thought it possible he hadn’t inquired the terms. But he appeared not to have heard me; he sat there, clasping his knee and absently blinking at the sunshine. “Are you from the United States, sir?” he presently demanded, turning his head again. “Well, I guess I am, sir,” I felt it indicated to reply; and I mentioned the place of my nativity. “I presumed you were American or English. I’m from the United States myself—from New York City. Many of our people here?” he went on. “Not so many as I believe there have sometimes been. There are two or three ladies.”