his tray
for his renewed ascent.

The room that the boy entered was in keeping with the rest of the
house--old-fashioned and in ill-repair. The floor was devoid of
covering, the ceiling low, the only furniture a dozen small tables
meagrely set out for _dejeuner_. On the moment of his entry eleven of
these tables were unoccupied, but at the twelfth an eager young waiter
attended upon a stout provincial Frenchwoman who was partaking heartily
of a pungently smelling stew.

On the opening of the door the waiter glanced round in strained
anticipation, and the lady of the stew looked up and bowed a greeting to
the new-comer.

It struck the boy as curious--this welcome from a total stranger, but
it woke anew the pleasant warmth, the agreeable sense of friendliness.
With the tingling sensation of doing a daring deed, he glanced round the
empty room, scanned the two long windows on which the cold, bright sun
played laughingly, and through which the rattle and hum of the rue de
Dunkerque penetrated like an exhilarating accompaniment, then, he walked
straight to the table of the lady, smiled and, in his own turn, bowed.

'Would madame permit him to sit at her table? It was sad to be alone
upon so fine a morning.'

A woman of any other nationality might have looked at him askance; but
madame was French. She was fifty years of age, she was fat, she was
ugly--but she was French. The sense of a pleasant encounter--the
appreciation of romance was in her blood. She smiled at the debonair boy
with as agreeable a self-consciousness as though she had been a young
girl.

'But certainly, if monsieur desired. The pleasure was for her.'

Again an interchange of bows and smiles, sympathetically repeated by the
interested young waiter. Then the boy, laying his hat and coat aside,
seated himself at the table and entered upon the business of the hour,
while madame became tactfully absorbed in her odoriferous stew.

'What did monsieur desire?' The waiter stood anxiously attentive, his
head inclining gravely to one side, his dirty napkin swinging from his
left hand.

The boy glanced up.

'What could the Hotel Railleux offer?'

The waiter met his eye steadfastly. 'Anything that monsieur cared to
order.'

The boy encountered the steadfast look, and a little gleam of humor shot
into his eyes.

'Well, then, to begin with, should they say _Sole Waleska_?'

The waiter's glance wavered, he threw the weight of his body from one
foot to t