Perhaps we may come back to it!" "Nonsense!" They looked up at the Austrian flag on the tower of the hotel, languidly curling and uncurling in the bland evening air, as it had over a thousand years of stupid and selfish monarchy, while all the generous republics of the Middle Ages had perished, and the commonwealths of later times had passed like fever dreams.

That dull, inglorious empire had antedated or outlived Venice and Genoa, Florence and Siena, the England of Cromwell, the Holland of the Stadtholders, and the France of many revolutions, and all the fleeting democracies which sprang from these.
March began to ask himself how his curiosity differed from that of the Europeans about him; then he became aware that these had detached themselves, and left him exposed to the presence of a fellow countryman.
It was Otterson, with Mrs.Otterson; he turned upon March with hilarious recognition.

"Hello! Most of the Americans in Carlsbad seem to be hanging round here for a sight of these kings.

Well, we don't have a great many of 'em, and it's natural we shouldn't want to miss any.

But now, you Eastern fellows, you go to Europe every summer, and yet you don't seem to get enough of 'em.