Halfway down the steps he encountered the alleged Adams of Hartford, who
had stopped to open his Badaeker at the right page before entering the
tomb.
"A magnificent bit of architecture," said the Hartford man
instructively.
"Pretty loud for a tomb," replied Bean judicially. He was not going to
let this Watkins, or whatever his name was, know what a fool he had made
of himself in there. Then he remembered something.
"Say," he ventured, "how'd you happen to think up that thing you were
always getting off to me back there on the boat--about as a man thinketh
_is_ he?"
"Tut-tut-tut! Really? But that is from the Holy Scriptures, which should
always be read in connection with Science and Health."
"I must get it--something _in_ that. Funny thing," he added genially,
"getting good stuff like that out of Hartford, Connecticut."
He left Watkins or Adams staring after him in some bewilderment, a
forgotten finger between the leaves of the Badaeker.
He began once more to lay a course through those puzzling streets. He
was going to that hotel. He was going to be an upstart and talk to his
own wife.
The tomb had cleared his brain.
"I'm no king," he thought; "never was a king; more likely a guinea-pig.
But I'm some one now, all right! I'll show 'em; not afraid of the whole
lot put together; face 'em all."
He came out upon the river at last and presently found himself back in
that circle of the hotel.
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