with the enigmatic good-fellow air with which he received everything.  None knew whether Krupp admired or disdained, loved or hated, the Five Towns and the English character.  He was a foreigner from some vague frontier of Switzerland, possessing no language of his own but a patois, and speaking other languages less than perfectly.  He had been a figure in the Five Towns Hotel for over twenty years.  He was an efficient waiter; yet he had never risen on the staff, and was still just the lounge or billiard-room waiter that he had always been—­and apparently content with Destiny.

Louis asked brusquely, as one who had no time to waste, “Will Faulkner’s be open?”

Krupp bent down and glanced through an interstice of a partition at a clock in the corridor.

“Yes, sir,” said Krupp with calm certainty.

Louis, pleased, thought, “This man is a fine waiter.”  Somehow Krupp made it seem as if by the force of his will he had forced Faulkner’s to be open—­in order to oblige Mr. Fores.

“Because,” said Louis casually, “I’ve no luggage, not a rag, and I want to buy a few things, and no other place’ll be open.”

“Yes, sir,” said Krupp, mysterious and quite incurious.  He did not even ask, “Do you wish a room, sir?”

“Heard about my accident, I suppose?” Louis went on, a little surprised that Krupp should make no sympathetic reference to his plasters.

Krupp became instantly sympathetic, yet keeping his customary reserve.

“Yes, sir.  And I am pleased to see you are recovered,” he said, with the faint, indefinable foreign accent and the lack of idiom which combined to deprive his remarks of any human quality.

“Well,” said Louis, not quite prepared to admit that the affair had gone so smoothly as Krupp appeared to imply, “I can tell you I’ve had a pretty bad time.  I really ought not to be here now, but—­” He stopped.

“Strange it should happen to you, sir.  A gentleman who was in here the other day said that in his opinion you were one of the cleverest cyclists in the Five Towns.”

Louis naturally inquired, “Who was that?”

“I could not say, sir.  Not one of our regular customers, sir,” with a touch of mild depreciation.  “A dark gentleman, with a beard, a little lame, I fancy.”  As Krupp had invented the gentleman and his opinion to meet the occasion, he was right in depriving him of the rank of a regular customer.

“Oh!” murmured Louis.  “By the way, has Mr. Gibbs come yet?”

“Mr. Gibbs, sir?”

“Yes, an American.  I have an appointment with him this afternoon.  If he comes in while I am over at Faulkner’s just tell him, will you?  I think he’s stopping at the Majestic.”

The Majestic being the latest rival hotel at Hanbridge, Krupp raised his eyebrows in a peculiar way and nodded his head.

Just as Krupp had invented a gentleman, so now Louis was inventing one.  Neither Krupp nor Louis guessed the inventive act of the other.  Krupp’s act was a caprice, a piece of embroidery, charming and unnecessary.  But Louis was inventing with serious intent, for he had to make his presence at the Five Towns Hotel on Easter Saturday seem natural and inevitable.