Seeing my name on the register, he made the mistake of confining his attention to me, which enabled Grim to get Mabel safely away into a big room on the second floor.
The Frenchman (if he was one--he had a Hebrew nose) made bold to corner me on a seat near the dining-room door.

He was nervous rather than affable--a little pompous, as behooved the representative of money power--and evidently used to having his impertinences answered humbly.
"You are from the South?
Did you have a good journey?
Was the train attacked?
Did you hear any interesting rumors on the way ?" Those were all preliminary questions, thrown out at random to break ice.
As he sat down beside me you could feel the next one coming just as easily as see that he wasn't interested in the answers to the first.
"You are here on business?
What business ?" "Private business," said I, with an eye on Jeremy just coming down the stairs.

"You talk Arabic ?" He nodded, eyeing me keenly.
"That man is my servant and knows my affairs.

I'm too tired to talk after the journey.

Suppose you ask him." So Jeremy came and sat beside us, and threw the cow's husband around as blithely as he juggles billiard balls.