ly familiar to me, and
yet--No, by Jove, I have it!" I broke off, with a little laugh. "It's
Louis, isn't it, from the Milan?"

"Monsieur's memory has soon returned," he answered, smiling. "I have
been chief _maitre d'hotel_ in the cafe there for some years. The
last time I had the honor of serving monsieur there was only a few
weeks ago."

I remembered him perfectly now. I remembered, even, the occasion of my
last visit to the cafe. Louis, with upraised hat, seemed as though he
would have passed on, but, curiously enough, I felt a desire to
continue the conversation. I had not as yet admitted the fact even to
myself; but I was bored, weary of my search, weary to death of my own
company and the company of my own acquaintances. I was reluctant to
let this little man go.

"You visit Paris often?" I asked.

"But naturally, monsieur," Louis answered, accepting my unspoken
invitation by keeping pace with me as we strolled towards the
Boulevard. "Once every six weeks I come over here. I go to the Ritz,
Paillard's, the Cafe de Paris,--to the others also. It is an affair of
business, of course. One must learn how the Frenchman eats and what he
eats, that one may teach the art."

"But you are a Frenchman yourself, Louis," I remarked.

"But, monsieur," he answered, "I live in London. _Voila
tout._ One cannot write menus there for long, and succeed. One
needs inspiration."

"And you find it here?" I asked.

Louis shrugged his shoulders.

"Paris, monsieur," he answered, "is my home. It is always a pleasure
to me to see smiling faces, to see men and women who walk as though
every footstep were taking them nearer to happiness. Have you never
noticed, monsieur," he continued, "the difference? They do not plod
here as do your English people. There is a buoyancy in their
footsteps, a mirth in their laughter, an expectancy in the way they
look around, as though adventures were everywhere. I cannot understand
it, but one feels it directly one sets foot in Paris."

I nodded--a little bitterly, perhaps.

"It is temperament," I answered. "We may envy, but we cannot acquire
it."

"It seems strange to see monsieur alone here," Louis remarked. "In
London, it is always so different. Monsieur has so many
acquaintances."

I was silent for a moment.

"I am here in search of some one," I told Louis. "It isn't a very
pleasant mission, and the memory of it is always with me."

"A search!" Louis repeated thoughtfully. "Paris is a