therefore, as I sat down beside him, to strike a pleasanter note. “The Alps, from here, do make a wondrous show!” “Yes, sir,” said Mr. Ruck without a stir, “I’ve examined the Alps. Fine thing in its way, the view—fine thing. Beauties of nature—that sort of thing. We came up on purpose to look at it.” “Your ladies then have been with you?” “Yes—I guess they’re fooling round. They’re awfully restless. They keep saying _I’m_ restless, but I’m as quiet as a sleeping child to _them_. It takes,” he added in a moment dryly, “the form of an interest in the stores.” “And are the stores what they’re after now?” “Yes—unless this is one of the days the stores don’t keep. They regret them, but I wish there were more of them! They told me to sit here a while and they’d just have a look. I generally know what that means—it’s _their_ form of scenery. But that’s the principal interest for ladies,” he added, retracting his irony. “We thought we’d come up here and see the cathedral; Mrs. Church seemed to think it a dead loss we shouldn’t see the cathedral, especially as we hadn’t seen many yet. And I had to come up to the banker’s anyway. Well, we certainly saw the cathedral. I don’t know as we’re any the better for it, and I don’t know as I should know it again. But we saw it anyway, stone by stone—and heard about it century by century. I don’t know as I should want to go there regularly, but I suppose it will give us in conversation a kind of hold on Mrs. Church, hey? I guess we want something of that kind. Well,” Mr. Ruck continued, “I stepped in at the banker’s to see if there wasn’t something, and they handed me out an old _Herald_.” “Well, I hope the _Herald’s_ full of good news,” I returned. “Can’t say it is. Damned bad news.” “Political,” I inquired, “or commercial?” “Oh hang politics! It’s business, sir. There _ain’t_ any business. It’s all gone to—” and Mr. Ruck became profane. “Nine failures in one day, and two of them in our locality. What do you say to that?” “I greatly hope they haven’t inconvenienced you,” was all I could gratify him with. “Well, I guess they haven’t affected me quite desirably. So many houses on fire, that’s all. If they happen to take place right where you live they don’t increase the value of your own property. When mine catches I suppose they’ll write and tell me—one of these days when they get round to me. I didn’t get a blamed letter this morning; I suppose they think I’m having such a good time over here it’s a pity to break in. If I could attend to business for about half an hour I’d find out something. But I can’t, and it’s no use talking. The state of my health was never so unsatisfactory as it was about five o’clock this morning.” “I’m very sorry to hear that,” I said, “and I recommend you strongly not to think of business.”