disappeared. They found in her
apartment her dresses, her linen, all even to the night-robe that she was
to have worn that night, but there was nothing that could give the
slightest clue to her identity. The owner of the house had let the
apartment to 'Mademoiselle Linda, concert-singer,' He knew nothing more. I
was summoned before the police magistrate. I had been seen on the night of
her disappearance roaming about with a distracted air in the vicinity of
the river. Luckily the judge knew me; luckily also, he was a man of no
ordinary intelligence. I related to him privately the entire story, just
as I have been telling it to you. He dismissed the inquiry; yet I may say
that very few have ever had so narrow, an escape as mine from a criminal
trial."

For several moments the silence of the company was unbroken. Finally a
gentleman, wishing to relieve the tension, cried out:

"Come now, doctor, confess that this is really all fiction; that you
merely want to prevent these ladies from getting any sleep to-night."

Tribourdeaux bowed stiffly, his face unsmiling and a little pale.

"You may take it as you will," he said.

GIL BLAS AND DR. SANGRADO

BY ALAIN RENE LE SAGE

As I was on my way, who should come across me but Dr. Sangrado, whom I had
not seen since the day of my master's death. I took the liberty of
touching my hat. He knew me in a twinkling.

"Heyday!" said he, with as much warmth as his temperament would allow him,
"the very lad I wanted to see; you have never been out of my thought. I
have occasion for a clever fellow about me, and pitched upon you as the
very thing, if you can read and write."

"Sir," replied I, "if that is all you require, I am your man."

"In that case," rejoined he, "we need look no further. Come home with me;
you will be very comfortable; I shall behave to you like a brother. You
will have no wages, but everything will be found you. You shall eat and
drink according to the true scientific system, and be taught to cure all
diseases. In a word, you shall rather be my young Sangrado than my
footman."

I closed in with the doctor's proposal, in the hope of becoming an
Esculapius under so inspired a master. He carried me home forthwith, to
install me in my honorable employment; which honorable employment
consisted in writing down the name and residence of the patients who sent
for him in his absence. There had indeed been a register for this purpose,
kept by an old domestic