The
fickle goddess has for the moment deserted me. But I am loyal. I have
for all worldly goods, two hundred and fifty dollars, with which I shall
honorably pay my hotel bill. I say I am a soldier of Fortune. But," he
slapped his chest, "I am the only honorable one on the Continent of
Europe."

The young man fixed upon him the hard blue eyes, not of the enthusiast
for stained glass windows, but of the senior partner in the boot factory
of Atlanta, Georgia.

"I believe you," said he. "It's a deal. Shake."

"And now," said Aristide, after having shaken hands, "come and lunch
with me at Nikola's for the last time."

He rose, stretched out both arms in a wide gesture and smiled with his
irresistible Ancient Mariner's eyes at the young man.

"We lunch. We eat ambrosia. Then we go out together and see the
wonderful world through the glass-blood of saints and martyrs and
apostles and the good Father Abraham and Louis Quatorze. _Viens, mon
cher ami._ It is the dream of my life."

Practically penniless and absolutely disillusioned, the amazing man was
radiantly happy.

IX

THE ADVENTURE OF A SAINT MARTIN'S SUMMER

My good friend Blessington, who is a mighty man in the Bordeaux
wine-trade, happening one day to lament the irreparable loss of a
deceased employe, an Admirable Crichton of a myriad accomplishments and
linguistic attainments whose functions it had been, apparently, to
travel about between London, Bordeaux, Marseilles and Algiers, I
immediately thought of a certain living and presumably unemployed
paragon of my acquaintance.

"I know the very man you're looking for," said I.

"Who is he?"

"He's a kind of human firework," said I, "and his name is Aristide
Pujol."

I sketched the man--in my desire to do a good turn to Aristide, perhaps
in exaggerated colour.

"Let me have a look at him," said Blessington.

"He may be anywhere on the continent of Europe," said I. "How long can
you give me to produce him?"

"A week. Not longer."

"I'll do my best," said I.

By good luck my telegram, sent off about four o'clock, found him at 213
_bis_ Rue Saint-Honore. He had just returned to Paris after some mad
dash for fortune (he told me afterwards a wild and disastrous story of a
Russian Grand-Duke, a Dancer and a gold mine in the Dolomites) and had
once more resumed the dreary conduct of the Agence Pujol at the Hotel du
Soleil et de l'Ecosse. My summons being imperative, he abandoned the
Agence Pujol