These he used to good advantage, drying his face and hands on the white counterpane of the bed, and laughing quietly as he did so.

Next he lit a pipe, whose capacity for tobacco was rather less than that of a lady's thimble, sat in a chair by the window, smoked quietly, and gazed down on the busy street.
It was yet early in the morning; sellers of vegetables, men and women peasants, with bare legs and wooden shoes, driving shaggy Servian ponies attached to low, cumbersome carts, passed and repassed, to and from the markets.

A gendarme, leaning the weight of his shoulder on the guard of a police saber, rested against the corner of a wine shop across the way.
Students, wearing squat caps with vizors, sauntered indolently along, twirling canes and ogling all who wore petticoats.

Occasionally the bright uniform of a royal cuirassier flashed by; and the Englishman would lean over the sill and gaze after him, nodding his head in approval whenever the cuirassier sat his horse well.
In the meantime the gendarme, who followed him from the station, had entered the hotel, hastily glanced at the freshly written name, and made off toward the palace.
"Well, here we are," mused the Englishman, pressing his thumb into the bowl of his pipe.

"The affair promises some excitement.