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122 SOME EXPERIENCES, 1880-1890 [CRAP.IX
as a relief after talking for three hours to Spaniards who,
more BUD, knew not a word of any language but their own.
Later he exhibited his skill in getting the waiter to understand
that. he was to be called at 7 a.m. by powerful
knocking on the door. It was a triumphant success, but
hardly gives promise of a possible way out of the difficulty
for which Esperanto was ereated. Our friend had roamed
through the remote parts of Europe without disaster,
but how he coped with accidents, loss of luggage, extortionate
innkeepers, etc., etc.. I cannot imagine.
This encounter reminds me of the only other man I
have ever met who talked incessantly lo foreigners, and
that was the gifted and delightful Father Dolling. At
Passow we found him in the parfour of the hotel chattering
.to all ald sundry, visitors, waiting-men. tired old
ladies, the "boots," the concierge, anyone who turned up.
Nobody understood a-word, but they all seemed to love
him at first sight. But Dolling must have shortened his
life by unintermittent output. The world would be a
better place if all eager people (especially men) between
fifty and seventy years of age knew that incessant chatter
is nearly always wearisome to the listeners and eannot fail ·
to sap the strength of the talker. Another eminent
ecclesiastic was a victim of the same infirmity, Bishop
Jacob of St. Albans.
There are. however, two nuisances which haunt hotels.
The first is the probability.that there are some folk in the
rooms downstairs who cannot abide fresli air, and refuse .
to believe that the eetarrh microbe breeds and thrives m
warm rooms but would periSh in the cold wind outside. ·
The second is that •somewhere there is probably waiting
for you a bore. Bores love hotels, because there are plenty
of people about who will"be taken in by the talker's initial· .
geniality and mistake it for il. desire to be civil. instead of
being an approach to his prey as stealthy and more deadly
than that of the spider to the fly. At San Remo we I
came across the common type of man who will lay down ·;
the law with triumphant dogmatism at table d'Mte till :