The Slim Princess | Page 9

octopus, and a viper, and a vampire, and a man-eating shark. I am what
you might call a composite zoo. If you want to get a line on me just
read this article on The Shameless Brigand of Bessemer, and you will
certainly find out that I am a nice young fellow."
Kalora had studied English for years and thought she knew it, and yet
she found it difficult fully, to comprehend all the figurative phrases of
this pleasing young stranger.
"Do I understand that you are traveling abroad because of your
unpopularity at home?" she asked.
"I am waiting for things to cool down. As soon as the muck-rakers wear
out their rakes, and the great American public finds some other kind of
hysterics to keep it worked up to a proper temperature, I shall mosey
back and resume business at the old stand. But why tell you the story of
my life? Play fair now, and tell me a lot about yourself. Where am I?"
"You are here in my father's private garden, where you hare no right to
be."

"And father?"
"Is Count Selim Malagaski, Governor-General of Morovenia."
"Wow! And you?"
"I am his daughter."
"The daughter of all that must be something. Have you a title?"
"I am called Princess."
"Can you beat that? Climb up a wall to see some A-rabs perform, and
find a real, sure-enough princess, and likewise, if you don't mind my
saying so, a pippin."
"I don't know what you mean," she said.
"A corker."
"Corker?"
"I mean that you're a good-looker--that it's no labor at all to gaze right
at you. I didn't think they grew them so far from headquarters, but I see
I'm wrong. You are certainly all right. Pardon me for saying this to you
so soon after we meet, but I have learned that you will never break a
woman's heart by telling her that she is a beaut."
[Illustration: "Are you a real ingénue, or a kidder?"]
Kalora leaned back in her chair and laughed. She was beginning to
comprehend the whimsical humor of the very unusual young man. His
direct and playful manner of speech amused her, and also seemed to
reassure her. And, when he seated himself within a few inches of her
elbow, fanning himself with the little straw hat, and calmly inspecting
the tiny landscape of the forbidden garden, she made no protest against
his familiarity, although she knew that she was violating the most
sacred rules laid down for her sex.

She reasoned thus with herself:
"To-day I have disgraced myself to the utmost, and, since I am utterly
shamed, why not revel in my lawlessness?"
Besides, she wished to question this young man. Mrs. Plumston had
said to her: "You are beautiful." No one else had ever intimated such a
thing. In fact, for five years she had been taunted almost daily because
of her lack of all physical charms. Perhaps she could learn the truth
about herself by some adroit questioning of the young man from
Pennsylvania.
"You have traveled a great deal?" she asked.
"Me and Baedeker and Cook wrote it," he replied; and then, seeing that
she was puzzled, he said: "I have been to all of the places they keep
open."
"You have seen many women in many countries?"
"I have. I couldn't help it, and I'm glad of it."
"Then you know what constitutes beauty?"
"Not always. What is sponge cake for me may be sawdust for
somebody else. Say, I rode for an hour in a 'rickshaw at Nagoya to see
the most beautiful girl in Japan and when we got to the teahouse they
trotted out a little shrimp that looked as if she'd been dried over a
barrel--you know, stood bent all the time, as if she was getting ready to
jump. Her neck was no bigger than a gripman's wrist and she had a
nose that stood right out from her face almost an eighth of an inch. Her
eyes were set on the bias and she was painted more colors than a
bandwagon. I said, 'If this is the champion geisha, take me back to the
land of the chorus girl.' And in China! Listen! I caught a Chinese belle
coming down the Queen's Road in Hong-Kong one day, and I ran up an
alley. I have seen Parisian beauties that had a coat of white veneering
over them an inch thick, and out here in this country I have seen
so-called cracker-jacks that ought to be doing the mountain-of-flesh act

in the Ringling side-show. So there you are!"
"But in your own country, and in the larger cities of the world, there
must be some sort of standard. What are the requirements? What must a
woman be, that all men would