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XV

IN THE morning, having slept little, he beheld from his balcony the magnificent departure of the Tinkers. A quarter of an hour earlier a deferential formality attended the setting forth of the Hereditary Prince Orthe XVIII of Fühlderstein and his bride, who had been spending part of their honeymoon in Algiers. The manager of the hotel and the concierge, with the two chief porters, the maître d'hôtel, two valets de chambre and an agent of police, all bowed respectfully as the amiable-looking young couple were driven away in an Italian touring car; but this, as the melancholy playwright observed, was only a one-act curtain-raiser, as it were, preceding the full-sized drama of the American family's departure. Looking down from his stone-railed box, he saw the brisk yet imposing arrival of two long and powerful French automobiles, new and glistening; one a landaulet, the other a limousine. The chauffeurs, trim young men of capable appearance, jumped