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it away. I was getting hungry, and I was afraid to ring for breakfast. It was a positively poisonous position. Finally, after a lot of thought, I got up, bolted the door, unpacked the blasted box and shoved all the tobacco in the drawers of the wardrobe. Luckily there was a key. The kit I disposed naturally enough. Then I had a bath and dressed. "As I was fastening my collar, the telephone went. It was the _Gare du Nord_. I jammed the receiver back. "As I passed through the hall, a clerk dashed after me 'The _Gare du Nord_,' he said, 'were insisting upon seeing me about a case of mine.' I replied that I was busy all day, and could see nobody before six o'clock. I didn't mention that my train went at five. It was as well I didn't argue, for, as I left the hotel, a station official entered. I leapt into a taxi and told the driver to go to _Notre Dame_. Not that I felt like Church, but it was the first place I could think of. Somebody shouted after me, but--well, you know how they drive in Paris. I stopped round the second corner, discharged the taxi, and walked to a restaurant. By rights, I should have been ravenous. As it was, the food stuck in my throat. A bottle of lime-juice, however, pulled me together. After luncheon I went to a cinema--I had to do something. Besides, the darkness attracted me.... I fancy I dozed for a bit. Any way, the first thing I remember was a couple of men being arrested in the lounge of a hotel. It was most realistic. What was more, the clerk who had run after me in the morning and the clerk on the screen might have been twins.... I imagine that my hair rose upon my head, and for the second time it seemed certain that I had mislaid my paunch. "I got out of the place somehow, to find that it was snowing. For the next hour I drove up and down the _Champs Elysees_. I only hope the driver enjoyed it more than I did. At last, when pneumonia seemed very near, I told him to drive to the hotel. "I fairly whipped through the hall and into the lift. As this ascended, a page arrived at the gate and spoke upward. I didn't hear what he said. "When I was in a hot bath, the telephone went. I let the swine ring. Finally somebody came and knocked at the door. Of my wisdom I hadn't bolted it, so, after waiting a little, they entered. I lay in the bath like the dead. After a good look round, they went away.... "By twenty past four I'd dressed, and repacked the case. I
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