This morning there had been scant time for such refreshment, or for that preliminary stretching which is so grateful to bodies wearied by late hours and too-rapid living. Instead, nearly all the sojourners at Weet-sur-Mer had arisen aching from their beds, had hurried forth to the beach, and stood there now, facing unanimously seawards, staring toward the dim horizon, only moving convulsively from time to time in the effort to keep warm. Those who had glasses used them; those who had none, strained nature's binoculars to the limit of vision. From all of which it will be seen that the notary had done his work well, and that neither had Monsieur Pelletan been backward in spreading the great news of the unparalleled occurrence which was about to happen. "He iss to arrive between t'e hours of seven unt eight," he had announced. "Hiss Highness, pe it understood, Lord Vernon, t'e great Englishman. He comes in a special vessel--a sheep-of-t'e-war," he added with a triumphant flourish. "He could pring mit' him t'e whole nafy of England, if he wish'!" Ah, what an honour for Weet-sur-Mer! And what a blow for the Grand Hôtel Splendide across the way! Yet Monsieur Pelletan did not in the least understand how it had come to pass; he suspected his partner of some sort of clairvoyance, of some supernatural power of compelling events, and his admiration for him had deepened to awe. But into this question he did not permit himself to enter deeply; he was content to know that fame and prosperity were returning with a rush to the Grand Hôtel Royal. Already there had been a score of applicants for rooms; the corridors were again assuming that air of liveliness and gaiety which had characterised them in those golden days when the August Prince of Zeit-Zeit had been his annual guest. He was no longer ashamed to meet the proprietor of the Grand Hôtel Splendide face to face in the full day; he was a different person from the despairing individual of the day before; in a word, he was no longer in ruins! He had been restored, as so many ruins are, by the hand of an American! At this moment he held the centre of the stage, and it was easy to read in his bearing the consciousness that he deserved the limelight. A strip of crimson carpet had been stretched across the sand to the very water's edge; on either side of it a dozen decorous footmen were aligned, and between them Monsieur Pelletan proudly marched, his head in air, his back very straight, preceding a big, hooded invalid's chair. Immediately a murmur arose. "He is ill then!" "Why the chair?" "He is coming to take the baths."