Sport Royal, and Other Stories

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Hope Anthony. Sport Royal, and Other Stories

SPORT ROYAL

CHAPTER I. The Sequel to the Ball

CHAPTER II. At the Hôtel Magnifique

CHAPTER III. The Mission of the Ruby

A TRAGEDY IN OUTLINE

A MALAPROPOS PARENT

HOW THEY STOPPED THE “RUN.”

A LITTLE JOKE

A GUARDIAN OF MORALITY

NOT A BAD DEAL

MIDDLETON’S MODEL

MY ASTRAL BODY

THE NEBRASKA LOADSTONE

A SUCCESSFUL REHEARSAL

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Heidelberg seems rather a tourist-ridden, hackneyed sort of place to be the mother of adventures. Nevertheless, it is there that my story begins. I had been traveling on the Continent, and came to Heidelberg to pay my duty to the castle, and recruit in quiet after a spell of rather laborious idleness at Homburg and Baden. At first sight I made up my mind that the place would bore me, and I came down to dinner at the hotel, looking forward only to a bad dinner and an early bed. The room was so full that I could not get a table to myself, and, seeing one occupied only by a couple of gentlemanly looking men, I made for it, and took the third seat, facing one of the strangers, a short, fair young man, with a little flaxen mustache and a soldierlike air, and having the other, who was older, dark, and clean-shaved, on my left. The fourth seat was empty.

The two gentlemen returned my bow with well-bred negligence, and I started on my soup. As I finished it, I looked up and saw my companions interchanging glances. Catching my eye, they both looked away in an absent fashion, each the while taking out of his pocket a red silk handkerchief and laying it on the table by him. I turned away for a moment, then suddenly looked again and found their eyes on me, and I fancied that the next moment the eyes wandered from me to the handkerchiefs. I happened to be carrying a red handkerchief myself, and, thinking either that something was in the wind or perhaps that my friends were having a joke at my expense (though, as I said, they looked well-bred men), I took it out of my pocket and, laying it on the table, gazed calmly in front of me, my eyes naturally falling on the fair young man.

.....

The countess stood and looked at me. I bowed and smiled.

“You are naturally surprised,” I said, in my smoothest tone.

.....