The city had taken
on its colorful night.
"Well, here's another day gone," he mused, rubbing his elbow,
which was yet stiff. "I am anxious to know what that sinner is
doing. Has he pulled up stakes or has he stayed to get a whack
at me? I hope he's gone; he's a bad Indian, and if anything,
he'll want my scalp in his belt before he goes. Hang it! It
seems that I have poked my head into every bear trap in the
kingdom. I may not get out of the next one. How clever I was, to
be sure! It all comes from loving the dramatic. I am a diplomat,
but nobody would guess it at first sight. To talk to a man as I
talked to him, and to threaten! He said I was young; I was, but
I grow older every day. And the wise word now is, don't imitate
the bull of the trestle," as he recalled an American cartoon
which at that day was having vogue in the American colony in
Vienna.
"I like adventure, I know, but I'm going to give the Colonel a
wide berth. If he sees me first, off the board I go. Where will
he go--to the duchy? I trust not; we both can not settle in that
territory; it's too small. And yet I am bound to go back; it is
not my promise so much as it is my cursed curiosity.
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