That is my business. To find out who are my traveling companions, whence they come, where they go, is that not the duty of a special correspondent in search of interviews? I will begin with my neighbor in front of me. That will not be difficult, I imagine. He is not dreaming or sleeping, or looking out on the landscape lighted by the last rays of the sun. If I am not mistaken he will be just as glad to speak to me as I am to speak to him--and reciprocally.
I will see. But a fear restrains me. Suppose this American--and I am sure he is one--should also be a special, perhaps for the _World_ or the _New York Herald_, and suppose he has also been ordered off to do this Grand Asiatic. That would be most annoying! He would be a rival!
My hesitation is prolonged. Shall I speak, shall I not speak? Already night has begun to fall. At last I was about to open my mouth when my companion prevented me.
"You are a Frenchman?" he said in my native tongue.
Evidently we could understand each other.
The ice was broken, and then question followed on question rather rapidly between us. You know the Oriental proverb:
"A fool asks more questions in an hour than a wise man in a year."
But as neither my companion nor myself had any pretensions to wisdom we asked away merrily.
I italicize this phrase because it will recur frequently, like the pull of the rope which gives the impetus to the swing.
"_Wait a bit_! I'll lay ten to one that you are a reporter!"
"And you would win! Yes. I am a reporter sent by the _Twentieth Century_ to do this journey."
"No. You need not excite yourself. We don't sell the same stuff, sir."
"Claudius Bombarnac, of Bordeaux, is delighted to be on the same road as--"
"Fulk Ephrinell, of the firm of Strong, Bulbul & Co., of New York City, New York, U.S.A."
We were mutually introduced. I a traveler in news, and he a traveler in--In what? That I had to find out.
The conversation continues. Ephrinell, as may be supposed, has been everywhere--and even farther, as he observes. He knows both Americas and almost all Europe. But this is the first time he has set foot in Asia. He talks and talks, and always jerks in _Wait a bit_, with inexhaustible loquacity. Has the Hunson the same properties as the Garonne?