I do not allude to the white wooden Venetian work that shades the Grand Hotel windows.  It is of the clique who insist on shutting the windows that I write.  Briefly speaking, the inmates of the Grand Hotel may be divided into two classes—­the window-openers and the window-shutters.  The former are all British.  The same Britons who at the Club scowl at a suspicion of draught, and luxuriate in an asphyxiating atmosphere, band against “the foreigners” in this respect.  We have a national reputation to keep up.  We are the nation of soap, of fresh air, of condescending discontent; and when we are on the Continent every one else, including the native, is “a foreigner;” we carry our nationality about with us like a camp-stool; we squat on it; we are jealous of it; it is a case of “Regardez, mais ne touchez pas!”

[Illustration:  COMMERCIAL INSTINCT.

Original Genius (soliloquising).  “Lor, it ’id bin a crool Shame to miss an Opportunity like this ’ere.  The gov’nor oughter lemme ’ave Ten Bob on that job!”]

This patriotic obtrusiveness culminates in the Battle of the Windows.  It is an oppressive evening.  The Table d’Hote-room is seething like a caldron; a few chosen conspirators and myself open the campaign early; we “tip” ADOLF “the wink.”  That diplomatist orders the great window to be half-opened.  If things go smoothly, he will gradually open out other sources of ventilation.  The Noah’s Ark procession files in—­all shapes and all languages, like the repast itself; DONNERWITZ, TARTARIN, SHIRTSOFF, SCAMPELINI; there is nothing in common between them—­save the paper collar; they would hail international declarations of war to-morrow; but the sight of us, and that speck of air leagues them. “Mein Gott, Die Englaender!” coughs DONNERWITZ; “Ce sont de fanatiques enrhumes!” hisses TARTARIN; SHIRTSOFF sneezes the sneeze of All the Russias; “Corpo di Bacco!” cries SCAMPALINI; still nothing is done; the “Potage a la reine,”—­so called from the predominance of rain-water—­ebbs away in the commingled smacks and gulps of the infuriated Powers; “Saumon du Rhin, sauce Tartare” is being apportioned to the knives of all nations; it is perhaps the sight of his knife, from which soup only is sacred, that nerves the fuming DONNERWITZ to lead the attack.  “Hst!” he shouts to the studiously unheeding ADOLF; “‘nother bottil Pellell—­ver’ well sare!” chirrups ADOLF reassuringly to me; DONNERWITZ raises his knife; I fear for the consequences; he brings it down with a clang on the hardened tumbler of the Grand Hotel; the timid pensionnaire of numberless summers starts and grows pale; SHIRTSOFF looks with peremptory encouragement towards the Teuton; “Ach, graesglich!” rattles out DONNERWITZ, and strikes again; the cobra-like gutturality of that “Ach” is heart-rending; still no ADOLF; at a gold-fraught glance from my companions, he has ordered another detachment to the front; a