smile.

"Oh, ah! I understand. You mek what is call ze American joke, eh? You
have little fun wiz me."

The Frenchman, for that he unmistakably was, laughed in the utmost good
humor. The boys found themselves much inclined to like this stranger.

"Now, young gentlemen," continued the Frenchman, "I am ze Chevalier
Gari d'Ouray."

"Glad to meet you, Chev," volunteered Eph, with suspicious amiability,
holding out his hand, which the Frenchman took daintily. "I'm a
'shoveleer' myself, and this awkward, gawky looking boy with me is our
engineer."

Eph had a tight grip on the stranger's hand, by this time, and was
surely making it interesting for the Frenchman. The Chevalier d'Ouray
was doing his best to retain his politeness, but Somers's hearty grip
hurt the foreigner's soft little hand.

"What can we do for you, Chev?" demanded Eph, holding to the Frenchman's
hand so persistently that Hastings gave his friend a sharp nudge in
the back.

"Let us go somewhere," urged the Frenchman. "Some place were we can sit
down and have ze talk about important matters. I have ze message for
you zat I cannot deliver upon ze street."

"Now, don't say, please," begged Eph, "that you have heard we are wanted
in the French Navy."

The Chevalier d'Ouray looked intensely astonished.

"Parbleu! You are one marvel!" gasped the Frenchman. "You read my most
secret thought. But yes! You have made ze one right guess. However,
I cannot more say upon ze street. Let us go somewhere."

"All right," nodded Eph. "You go along, now, and we'll be along in an
hour."

"Wiz pleasure," nodded the chevalier, eagerly. "But we're shall I go?"

"Anywhere you like," suggested Eph, cordially.

"But, zen, how will you know w'ere I am to be found?"

"Oh, we'll take a chance on that," proposed Eph, carelessly.

"But, unless I am able to say, now, w'ere I shall be--" the Frenchman
started to argue.

"We'll guess the meeting place as well as we did your errand," proposed
Eph.

"Ten thousan' thanks!" cried, the chevalier. "Yet, for fear we mek ze
one mistek, suppose I say--"

Eph Somers had struck such a streak of "guying" nonsense that Jack
Benson felt called upon to interpose, for he and Hal both liked the
twinkling eyes and good-humored face of this dandified little Frenchman.

"Pardon me, sir," Jack accordingly broke in, "but, if we happened to
guess your errand, it was because we have just gotten away from the
agent of anothe