CHAPTER XV
THE HOMEWARD BOUND
It was the middle of the following afternoon, and there was quiet in the premises of the Hôtel d'Angleterre. Its guests languished, napping through the heat of the day in their rooms; and only in O'Rourke's quarters were any evidences of activity to be found. But there confusion reigned—such confusion as might be expected to attend a sudden and unexpected departure from a place wherein one has believed oneself established for an indeterminate if lengthy period of time.
Danny, his face as red as his hair, perspiring and profane, stood in the middle of the floor, ankle-deep in a litter of wearing apparel, saddles, belts, holsters, and all the variegated paraphernalia which O'Rourke had seen fit to attach unto himself in the course of a short but active campaign for fortune—upon which in this one instance, contrarily enough to prove her sex, Fortune had smiled. The acquisitiveness of an Irishman with a pocketful of money is proverbial; of late nothing had been too good for O'Rourke, too cumbersome, or too expensive. He had been prospering, and the shopkeepers of the Mediterranean ports were bearing in fond remembrance his extravagances.
And Danny, wild-eyed and desperate, was endeavoring to pack all this resultant accumulation of rubbish into one small trunk and a smaller leathern suit-case, in time to get them off, together with himself and his master, upon the
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