,
John, and you will be able to buy a cafe in Warsaw one of these days."

"Me, monsieur! How can a poor waiter hope to serve a King?"

"_Que diable!_ You never know your luck. Life is a lottery, and some day
you may draw the great prize."

Felix sauntered into the street and took a keen interest in its
architecture. In front of the hotel and down a slight gradient to the
right it was a wide and straight thoroughfare; but to the left and
uphill it narrowed rapidly and took a sharp left turn. In the angle
stood a popular restaurant, and the rooms on the first and second
stories were full of customers. No one, apparently, was looking out; but
small parties of men sat near each open window, and they were not
playing cards or dominoes, though the greater part of the male
inhabitants of Delgratz seem to do little else when not eating or
sleeping. Moreover, an empty bullock cart was halted in front of the
ground floor entrance.

"There's thunder in the air," said Poluski to himself; but he continued
to admire the irregular outlines of Fuerst Michaelstrasse. Thus, he could
not fail to notice that the upper rooms of three cafes exactly similar
to that at the corner were untenanted, while there was a disposition on
the part of the late Seventh Regiment to group itself either at the
turning or a good deal lower down the street, perhaps a hundred yards
beyond the hotel.

"Yes," said he, eying the glittering expanse of unclouded blue overhead,
"a storm is certainly brewing. I can feel it in my bones. It reminds me
of the afternoon we removed the Governor of Silesia. He was fused by a
thunderbolt, from just such a summer sky. Obviously, what he lacked was
a lightning conductor. Now, the question is, even if he had owned one,
whereabouts would he have put it?"

The reply was given by the appearance of two men on horseback advancing
at a fast trot up the easy slope of the hill. They were notable because
they wore the ordinary costume adopted by riders in the Bois or the Row,
and in Delgratz, where rank was marked by uniform, this fact conferred
distinction. A few yards behind them cantered a couple of soldiers.

"You are ten minutes before time, my dear Alec," murmured Felix. "Joan
will never forgive me if she is still asleep; but what is one to do?
_Saperlotte!_ One must act."

A hasty glance over his shoulder showed that the gentry in the corner
cafe were stirred by some common impulse that led them to the windows,
while th