This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

WHITEWASH

chambermaid what room he has, and look it up on the register."

"But," objected the Russian, "there won't be what you call a register here, only those miserable little slips you have to make out and hand to the landlord—how old you are and where you were born, and what for, and who filled your teeth and where you think you'll go to when you die,—and all sorts of little personalities that might interest the police."

"That's so," Shorty nodded, gravely. "Never mind, though, we'll find out; there is always somebody who makes it his business to know everybody else's."

"Very handsome sentence. Did you make it all yourself? " Victoria grinned. "Come in, it's safe now to tackle the hotel, they have disposed of the—the—what's feminine for hidalgo?"

Their entrance into the inn in their turn brought sorrow. The landlord remembered perfectly the correspondence with the young ladies, but what was he to do? Madame de Vernon-Château-Lamion had just arrived, bringing her little daughter to the good St. Anne. She had re-

21