rrors which you are going to confront dismay you, I beg that
you will not consider yourself bound to me."

"My dear Professor," I replied, "a brave man tastes of death but once."

He was much delighted at the sentiment, which he took to be original.

"I shall quote it," said he, "whenever my honour or my courage is called
into question. It is not often that a man has the temerity to do so. Can
I have the honour of offering you a whisky and soda?"

"Have we time?" I asked.

"We have time," he said, solemnly consulting his watch. "Things will
ripen."

"Then," said I, "I shall have much pleasure in drinking to their
maturity."

While we were drinking our whisky and soda he talked volubly of many
things--his travels, his cats, his own incredible importance in
the cosmos. And as he sat there vapouring about the pathetically
insignificant he looked more like Napoleon III than ever. His eyes had
the same mournful depths, his features the same stamp of fatality. Each
man has his gigantic combinations--perhaps equally important in the eyes
of the High Gods. I was filled with an immense pity for Napoleon III.

Of the object of the adventure he said nothing. As secrecy seemed to
be a vital element in his fifteen-cent scheme, I showed no embarrassing
curiosity. Indeed, I felt but little, though I was certain that the
adventure was connected with the world-cracking revelations of Monsieur
Saupiquet, and was undertaken in the interest of his beloved lady, Lola
Brandt. But it was like playing at pirates with a child, and my pity
for Napoleon gave place to my pity for my valiant but childish little
friend.

At last he looked again at his watch.

"The hour his struck. Let us proceed."

Instinctively I summoned the waiter, and drew a coin from my pocket; and
when the grown-up person and the small boy hobnob together the former
pays. But Anastasius, with a swift look of protest, anticipated my
intention. I was his guest for the evening. I yielded apologetically,
the score was paid, and we went forth into the moonlight.

He led me across the Place du Gouvernement and struck straight up the
hill past the Cathedral, and, turning, plunged into a network of narrow
streets, where the poor of all races lived together in amity and evil
odours. Shops chiefly occupied the ground floors; some were the ordinary
humble shops of Europeans; others were caves lit by a smoky lamp, where
Arabs lounged and smoked around the tailors or cobblers