--the note that touches the imagination to so acute an interest.
Here shabby, broken-down shops rubbed shoulders with fine old entries,
entries that savored of other times in the hint of roomy court-yard and
green garden to be caught behind their gateways; here were creameries
that conjured the country to the eager senses, and laundries that
exhaled a very aroma of work in the hot steam that poured through their
windows and in the babble of voices that arose from the women who stood
side by side, iron in hand, bending over the long, spotless tables piled
with linen.

It was a touch of Parisian life, small in itself, but subtle and
suggestive as the premonition of spring awakened by the twittering of
the sparrows in the tall, leafless trees, and the throbbing song of a
caged canary that floated down from a window above a shop. It was
suggestive of that Parisian life that is as restless as the sea, as
uncontrollable, as possessed of hidden currents.

Involuntarily the boy paused and glanced up at the bird in its cage--the
bird that, regardless of the garden of greenstuffs pushed through its
bars, was pouring forth its heart to the pale sun in a frenzy of
worship.

"How strange that is!" he said. "If I were a bird and saw the great sky,
knowing myself imprisoned, I should beat my life out against my cage."

The Irishman looked down upon him. "I wonder!" he said, slowly.

The quick, gray eyes flashed up to his. "You doubt it?"

"I don't know! 'On my soul, I don't know!"

"Would you not beat your life out against a cage?"

"I wonder that too! I'd like to think I would, but--"

"You imagine you would hesitate? You think you would shrink?"

"I don't know! Human nature is so damnably patient. Come along! here's
the place we're looking for." He drew the boy across the road to the
doorway of a little _cafe_, over the door of which hung the somewhat
pretentious sign Maison Gustav.

The Maison Gustav was scarcely a more appetizing place than the Hotel
Railleux. One-half of its interior was partitioned off and filled with
long tables, at which, earlier in the day, workmen were served with
_dejeuner_, while the other and smaller portion, reserved for more
fastidious guests, was fitted with a counter, ranged with fruit and
cakes, and with half a dozen round marble-topped tables, provided with
chairs.

This more refined portion of the _cafe_ was empty of customers as the
two entered. With the ease and decision of an _habi