For the first hour it was difficult to rid one's self of the conviction that the man was choking.

Every moment we expected him to die on our hands.

In the course of the morning we grew accustomed to him, and rid ourselves of the instinct to throw him on his back every time he opened his mouth, and tear his clothes from him.

Later, we came to understand a part of what he said, and this led to the discovery of his second failing.
It would seem he had lately invented a hair-restorer, which he had persuaded a local chemist to take up and advertise.

Half his time he had been pointing out to us, not the beauties of Prague, but the benefits likely to accrue to the human race from the use of this concoction; and the conventional agreement with which, under the impression he was waxing eloquent concerning views and architecture, we had met his enthusiasm he had attributed to sympathetic interest in this wretched wash of his.
The result was that now there was no keeping him away from the subject.
Ruined palaces and crumbling churches he dismissed with curt reference as mere frivolities, encouraging a morbid taste for the decadent.