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The loud hubbub of conversation, nearly all in German, the shouts of the waiters, the noise of their footfalls upon the stone floor, the sound of mugs being placed upon tables and of Max draining his "stein" of beer, bridged the hiatus between the ending of Max's narrative and the beginning of my own: "Your story reminds me of one to which the city editor assigned me on one of my 'late nights. I took a cab and went to the station-house.
Then it came into Max's mind, with all the brilliancy of a dynamo spark, that this was the one girl in all the world, the ideal he had been searching for; and he wanted to fall at her feet and tell her so. "Look!" she cried gleefully, holding up the packet of bank-notes. "I wish," he said boyishly, "that you didn't have any money at all, so I could help you and feel that you depended upon me."
The metamorphosis was complete, and Max's hallucination, I felt sure, would be cured. The princess's face was not burned on his heart, whatever might be true of Yolanda's. I can give no stronger testimony to the marvellous quality of the change this girl had wrought in herself than to tell you that even I began to doubt, and wonder if Yolanda had tricked me. The effect on Max was instantaneous.
Nevertheless, the news of the arrival of the legitimate heirs was of a nature to shake Max's faith in Flore's influence. Rouget's savings, accumulating during the last seventeen years, still stood in his own name; and even if the will, which Flore declared had long been made in her favor, were revoked, these savings at least might be secured by putting them in the name of Mademoiselle Brazier.
He turned out all the pockets, counted the contents of the purse, and of the notecase, examined the name inside M. Max's hat, and explored the lining in a manner which aroused the detective's professional admiration. Watch and pocket-knife, Ho-Pin inspected with interest. The little hand-bag which M. Max had brought with him, containing a few toilet necessaries, was overhauled religiously.
At that time there wasn't an American student who did not recollect Max's great run from the ten-yard line. You never realize how beautiful your flag is till you see it in a foreign land. I apologized for Max's absence, explaining the cause, and ordered dinner to be served. We hadn't much time, as Ellis's train departed at ten. It was now a quarter to nine.
Where Ernest had written 'enthusiasm, Lancaster had simply altered the word to 'fanaticism; where Ernest had spoken of Herr Max's 'single-hearted devotion, Lancaster had merely changed the phrase into 'undisguised revolutionary ardour. The whole paper was one long sermon against Max Schurz's Utopian schemes, imputing to him not only folly but even positive criminality as well.
"Keep it a-going, Johnny!" he cried, "if you stop for half a second, you lose all your labour; only persevere, and you're sure to succeed; none of the shipwrecked people you ever read of had any trouble about it, you know." But Johnny concluded that the sticks could not be of the right kind, and notwithstanding Max's exhortations, he at last gave up the attempt.
The lovely weather continued, there was nothing to mar the pleasure of the short voyage, the drive and ride that succeeded it for the carriages and Max's pony, Rex, which he hailed with almost a shout of delight and hastened to mount, were found awaiting them at the wharf or the arrival at their homes, Ion and Woodburn, which seemed to the young cadet to be looking even more beautiful than ever before.
The Agha scarcely glanced at Max's companion, the dark, spectacled Arab, but announcing in French that no interpreter would be needed, he clapped his hands to summon a servant. One of the black men lifted the red curtains higher and came in, received instructions as to the interpreter's entertainment, and led him away. Max could hardly keep back a sigh of relief, for that had been a bad moment.
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