f absinthe equal to Sazerac's best. Madame
Tibault, fat and indulgent, presides at the desk, and takes your
money. Nicolette and Meme, madame's nieces, in charming bib aprons,
bring the desirable beverages.

Dumars, with true Creole luxury, was sipping his absinthe, with
half-closed eyes, in a swirl of cigarette smoke. Robbins was looking
over the morning _Pic._, detecting, as young reporters will, the
gross blunders in the make-up, and the envious blue-pencilling his
own stuff had received. This item, in the advertising columns,
caught his eye, and with an exclamation of sudden interest he read
it aloud to his friend.

Public Auction.--At three o'clock this afternoon there will
be sold to the highest bidder all the common property of the
Little Sisters of Samaria, at the home of the Sisterhood,
in Bonhomme Street. The sale will dispose of the building,
ground, and the complete furnishings of the house and chapel,
without reserve.

This notice stirred the two friends to a reminiscent talk concerning
an episode in their journalistic career that had occurred about
two years before. They recalled the incidents, went over the old
theories, and discussed it anew from the different perspective time
had brought.

There were no other customers in the cafe. Madame's fine ear had
caught the line of their talk, and she came over to their table--for
had it not been her lost money--her vanished twenty thousand
dollars--that had set the whole matter going?

The three took up the long-abandoned mystery, threshing over the
old, dry chaff of it. It was in the chapel of this house of the
Little Sisters of Samaria that Robbins and Dumars had stood during
that eager, fruitless news search of theirs, and looked upon the
gilded statue of the Virgin.

"Thass so, boys," said madame, summing up. "Thass ver' wicked man,
M'sieur Morin. Everybody shall be cert' he steal those money I
plaze in his hand for keep safe. Yes. He's boun' spend that money,
somehow." Madame turned a broad and contemplative smile upon Dumars.
"I ond'stand you, M'sieur Dumars, those day you come ask fo' tell
ev'ything I know 'bout M'sieur Morin. Ah! yes, I know most time
when those men lose money you say '_Cherchez la femme_'--there is
somewhere the woman. But not for M'sieur Morin. No, boys. Before he
shall die, he is like one saint. You might's well, M'sieur Dumars,
go try find those money in those statue of Virgin Mary that M'sieur
Morin p