onger
periods each day. I began to read my letters now, instead of having
Hephzy read them to me, letters from Matthews at the London office and
from Jim Campbell at home. Matthews had cabled Jim of the accident and
later that I was recovering. So Jim wrote, professing to find material
gain in the affair.

"Great stuff," he wrote. "Two chapters at least. The hero, pursuing the
villain through the streets of Paris at midnight, is run down by an
auto driven by said villain. 'Ah ha!' says the villain: 'Now will you be
good?' or words to that effect. 'Desmond,' says the hero, unflinchingly,
as they extract the cobble-stones from his cuticle, 'you triumph for the
moment, but beware! there will be something doing later on.' See? If
it wasn't for the cracked rib and the rest I should be almost glad it
happened. All you need is the beautiful heroine nursing you to recovery.
Can't you find her?"

He did not know that I had found her, or that the hoped-for novel was
less likely to be finished than ever.

Hephzy was now able to leave me occasionally, to take the walks which I
insisted upon. She had some queer experiences in these walks.

"Lost again to-day, Hosy," she said, cheerfully, removing her bonnet. "I
went cruisin' through the streets over to the south'ard and they were so
narrow and so crooked--to say nothin' of bein' dirty and smelly--that I
thought I never should get out. Of course I could have hired a hack
and let it bring me to the hotel but I wouldn't do that. I was set on
findin' my own way. I'd walked in and I was goin' to walk out, that was
all there was to it. 'Twasn't the first time I'd been lost in this Paris
place and I've got a system of my own. When I get to the square 'Place
delay Concorde,' they call it, I know where I am. And 'Concorde' is
enough like Concord, Mass., to make me remember the name. So I walk up
to a nice appearin' Frenchman with a tall hat and whiskers--I didn't
know there was so many chin whiskers outside of East Harniss, or some
other back number place--and I say, 'Pardon, Monseer. Place delay
Concorde?' Just like that with a question mark after it. After I say it
two or three times he begins to get a floatin' sniff of what I'm drivin'
at and says he: 'Place delay Concorde? Oh, we, we, we, Madame!' Then a
whole string of jabber and arm wavin', with some countin' in the middle
of it. Now I've learned 'one, two, three' in French and I know he
means for me to keep on for two or three mor