"Well," he said, "now I'll explain. I'm not ignorant, like they are. I've been in Egypt and Malta and Gibraltar. I've met hundreds of English ladies travelling as you are, and I know how funny this must appear to you. I'll tell you how it is for them. They have sixty or seventy pounds a year, and not one of them has been paid for six months. They play cards with the trades-people in hopes of winning enough to buy tobacco. I do wish you would point out to me the one that spoke to you last night; I think it is perhaps the one I lent ten francs to yesterday. The innkeeper is very pleased to see you, because he knows you will pay. When these poor boys get their pay, it will all be taken from them at once for their debts. That is the situation. Then you come, as it were from the heavens! They hear you are English. It is seen at once you have no ring on your finger. It is evident, then, that you hate all Englishmen. On the other hand, you like Servia, or why should you have come? My God! they think, what a chance! Not twice in a hundred years! But one of them was undoubtedly too hasty." He went on to inform me that a very nice one could be had for about forty pounds a year. I gazed upon the enemy's entrenchment, decided that I was hopelessly outnumbered and that flight was the only way, mobilised my force of one man and two horses, and retired in good order while yet there was time, slightly humiliated by the feeling that Britain was flying from a foreign army, but bowing graciously to such of its representatives as were kind enough to salute as I passed. And as I left and passed through the rich valleys and grassy uplands, and thought of the many kind friends who had helped me on my way, I was grieved that a land with so many possibilities and so much that is good and beautiful in it should be brought, by bad government, to such a pass that the officers are reduced to hawking themselves upon the streets. But all this I was to learn later. At Valjevo I merely looked at the officers and admired. My journey to Obrenovatz, the next town on my route, was amusing, as I shared a carriage with a "commercial," a Jew who among other things was agent for a life-insurance company. He was on his return journey, and we halted from time to time at various houses, that he might, if possible, reap the results of the seeds he had sown on his outward march. Everywhere he preached the benefits of life insurance. He suggested at last that I should insure for the sake of my fiancé! When I said I hadn't one, he saw a fresh opening for business. He had, he said, married his own daughter extremely well. He enlarged upon the highly successful nature of his own marriage, and told me about Someone-avich who had married an English wife who is exceedingly happy. Finally, worn out by his fruitless exertions, he fell asleep.