I shall only just catch my boat." "Your boat ?" "I am going to Algiers." "Where will you be staying, Monsieur?
I ask in no spirit of vulgar curiosity." I raised a protesting hand, and with a smile named my hotel.
"I arrived here from Algiers yesterday afternoon," he said, "and I proceed there again to-morrow." "I regret," said I, "that you are not coming to-day, so that I could have the pleasure of your company on the voyage." My polite formula seemed to delight Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos enormously.

He made a series of the most complicated bows, to the joy of the waiters and the passers-by.

I shook hands with him and with the stolid Monsieur Saupiquet, and waving my hat more like an excited Montenegrin than the most respectable of British valetudinarians, I drove off to the Quai de la Joliette, where I found an anxious but dogged Rogers, in the midst of a vociferating crowd, literally holding the bridge that gave access to the _Marechal Bugeaud_.
"Thank Heaven, you've come, sir! You almost missed it.

I couldn't have held out another minute." I, too, was thankful.

If I had missed the boat I should have had to wait till the next day and crossed in the embarrassing and unrestful company of Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos.