s. For you above all! Think again, Struboff, think again!"

Struboff shrugged his fat shoulders in helpless bad temper. I was
laughing so much (at what, at what?) that I could hardly do my part in
hustling him along. Wetter set a hot pace, and Struboff soon began to
pant.

"I can't walk. Call a cab!" he gasped.

"Cab? No, no. We can't sit still. Conscience, my dear Struboff! _Post
equitem_--you know. There's nothing like walking for sinners like us.
Bring him along, Baron, bring him along!"

"Perhaps M. Struboff doesn't desire our company," I suggested.

"Perhaps!" shouted Wetter, with a laugh that turned a dozen heads toward
him. "Oh, my dear Struboff, do you hear this suggestion of our friend
the baron's? What a pity you have no breath to repudiate it!"

But now we were escaping from the crowd. Crossing in front of the Opera
House, we made for the Rue de la Paix. The pace became smarter still;
not only was Struboff breathless with being dragged along, but I was
breathless with dragging him. I insisted on a cab. Wetter yielded,
planted Struboff and me side by side, and took the little seat facing us
himself. Here he sat, smiling maliciously, as the poor impresario mopped
his forehead and fetched up deep gasps of breath. Where lay the
inspiration of this horseplay of Wetter's?

"Quicker, quicker!" he cried to the driver. "I am impatient, my friends
are impatient. Quick, quick! Only God is patient."

"He's mad," grunted Struboff. "He's quite mad. The devil, I'm hot!"

Wetter suddenly assumed an air of great dignity and blandness.

"In offering to present us to madame at an hour possibly somewhat late,"
he said, "our dear M. Struboff shows his wonted amiability. We should
be failing in gratitude if we did not thank him most sincerely."

"I didn't ask you to come," growled Struboff.

Wetter looked at him with an air of grieved surprise, but said nothing
at all. He turned to me with a ridiculous look of protest, as though
asking for my support. I laughed; the mad nonsense was so welcome to me.

We stopped before a tall house in the Rue Washington; Wetter bundled us
out with immense haste. There were lights in the second-floor windows.
"Madame expects us!" he cried with a rapturous clasping of his hands.
"Come, come, dear Struboff!--Baron, Baron, pray take Struboff's arm; the
steps to heaven are so steep."

Struboff seemed resigned to his fate; he allowed himself to be pushed
upstairs without expostulation. He