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He was about fifty years of age, of true Muscovite type, beard and hair turning gray, face prepossessing. I knew Russian: he ought to know French. Perhaps he was the fellow traveler of whom I had dreamed. "You said he was a major, Mr. Ephrinell?" "Yes, a doctor in the Russian army, and they call him Major Noltitz."
Bombarnac," said Ephrinell to me, "are you serious in regretting all those fine things?" "Quite serious," I reply. "With the advantages of the straight line of railway we lose the picturesqueness of the curved line, or the broken line of the highways of the past. And, Monsieur Ephrinell, when you read of traveling in Transcaucasia forty years ago, do you not regret it?
"But," said Pan-Chao, "how does it happen the Nanking branch was open when the Tjon viaduct is not finished? Had the switch been interfered with?" "Undoubtedly," said Popof, "and probably out of carelessness." "No," said Ephrinell, deliberately. "There has been a crime a crime intended to bring about the destruction of the train and passengers " "And with what object?" asked Popof.
"He is not late this time," said I to Ephrinell. "The dinner hour is never forgotten in the German Empire!" replied the American. "Do you know that German's name?" "Baron Weissschnitzerdörfer." "And with that name is he going to Pekin?" "To Pekin, like that Russian major who is sitting near the captain of the Astara." I looked at the man indicated.
But we must leave Ephrinell gathering up the odontological treasures of the forty-second case. The bell is ringing for the last time. All the passengers are aboard. The Astara is casting off her warps. Suddenly there are shouts from the quay. I recognize them as being in German, the same as I had heard at Tiflis when the train was starting for Baku. It is the same man.
Evidently the American was some distance ahead of me, and yet he was not a reporter by profession. As the rolling was not yet very great, we could dine in comfort. Ephrinell chatted with Miss Horatia Bluett, and I understood that there was an understanding between these two perfectly Anglo-Saxon natures. In fact, one was a traveler in teeth and the other was a traveler in hair.
All night was spent in running the three hundred kilometres which separate this town from Ho Nan, where we had an hour to stop. I fancy the Londoners might easily imagine that this town of Ho Nan was London, and perhaps Mrs. Ephrinell did so. Not because there was a Strand with its extraordinary traffic, nor a Thames with its prodigious movement of barges and steamboats. No!
"Claudius Bombarnac, of Bordeaux, is delighted to be on the same road as " "Fulk Ephrinell, of the firm of Strong, Bulbul & Co., of New York City, New York, U.S.A." And he really added U.S.A. We were mutually introduced. I a traveler in news, and he a traveler in In what? That I had to find out. The conversation continues.
"At last," said I to Ephrinell, "the forty-two packages of Strong, Bulbul & Co. have come into port. But it is a wonder the explosion of our engine did not smash your artificial teeth." "Just so," said the American, "my teeth had a narrow escape. What adventures they have had since we left Tiflis? Decidedly this journey has been less monotonous than I expected."
I know where the case is placed; it is in the left corner as I enter. The thing is not to knock against any other case not against one of those belonging to Ephrinell, for what a row there would be if I set all those artificial teeth chattering! Carefully feeling with feet and hands, I reach the case. No cat could have been more gentle or more silent as I felt its edges.
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