deed, he possessed others like this which had fallen
into my keeping. Perhaps he would soon discover his mistake, return to
the cafe and untangle the snarl. I sincerely hoped he would. As I
remarked, my hat had cost me eight dollars.

I soon arrived at my apartments, and got into a smoking-jacket. I rather
delight in lolling around in a dress-shirt; it looks so like the
pictures we see in the fashionable novels. I picked up Blackstone and
turned to his "promissory notes." I had two or three out myself. It was
nine o'clock when the hall-boy's bell rang, and I placed my ear to the
tube. A gentleman wished to see me in regard to a lost hat.

"Send him up, James; send him up!" I bawled down the tube. Visions of
the club returned, and I tossed Blackstone into a corner.

Presently there came a tap on the door, and I flung it wide. But my
visitor was not the benevolent old gentleman. He was the Frenchman whose
absinthe had offended me. He glanced at the slip of paper in his hand.

"I have zee honaire to address zee--ah--gentleman in numbaire six?"

"I live here."

"Delight'! We have meexed zee hats, I have zee r-r-regret. Ees thees
your hat?" He held out, for my inspection, an opera-hat. "I am _so_
absent-mind'--what you call deestrait?"--affably.

I took the hat, which at first glance I thought to be mine, and went
over to the rack, taking down the old stovepipe.

"This is yours, then?" I said, smiling.

"Thousand thanks, m'sieu! Eet ees certain mine. I have zee honaire to
beg pardon for zee confusion. My compliments! Good night!"

Without giving the hat a single glance, he clapped it on his head, bowed
and disappeared, leaving me his card. He hadn't been gone two minutes
when I discovered that the hat he had exchanged for the stovepipe was
_not_ mine. It came from the same firm, but the initials proved it
without doubt to belong to the young fellow I had met at the table. I
said some uncomplimentary things. Where the deuce _was_ my hat?
Evidently the benevolent old gentleman hadn't waked up yet.

Ting-a-ling! It was the boy's bell again.

"Well?"

"Another man after a hat. What's goin' on?"

"Send him up!" I yelled. It came over me that the Frenchman had made a
second mistake.

I was not disappointed this time in my visitor. It was the benevolent
old gentleman. Evidently he had not located _his_ hat either, and might
not for some time to come. I began to believe that I had given it to the
Frenchman. He seem