s and compelled me to travel straight through from
Buda-Pesth. It was Paragot and Blanquette and Narcisse that I wanted to
see and not Berlin.

Yet when I stepped out of the train on to the Paris platform, I was
conscious for the first time of development. I was decently attired. I
had a bag filled with the garments of respectability. I had money in my
pocket, also a packet of cigarettes. A porter took my luggage and
enquired in the third person whether Monsieur desired a cab. The
temptation was too great for eighteen. I took the cab in a lordly way
and drove to No. 11 Rue des Saladiers where Paragot had his "bel
appartement." And with the anticipatory throb of joy at beholding my
beloved Master was mingled a thrill of vain-glorious happiness. Asticot
in a cab! It was absurd, and yet it seemed to fall within the divine
fitness of things.

The cab stopped in a narrow street. I had an impression of tall houses
looking fantastically dilapidated in the dim gas-light, of little shops
on the ground floor, and of little murky gateways leading to the
habitations above. Beside the gateway of No. 11 was a small workman's
drinking shop, sometimes called in Paris a _zinc_ on account of the
polished zinc bar which is its principal feature. Untidy, slouching
people filled the street.

Directed by the concierge to the _cinquieme a gauche_, I mounted narrow,
evil smelling, badly lighted stairs, and rang at the designated door. It
opened; Blanquette appeared with a lamp in her hand.

"_Monsieur desire?_"

"_Mais c'est moi, Blanquette._"

In another minute she had ushered me in, set down the lamp and was
hugging me in her strong young arms.

"But my little Asticot, I did not know you. You have changed. You are no
longer the same. _Tu es tout a fait monsieur!_ How proud the Master will
be."

"Where is he?"

Alas, the Master did not expect me to-day and was at the Cafe Delphine.
She would go straightway and tell him. I must be tired and hungry. She
would get me something to eat. But who would have thought I should have
come back a _monsieur_! How I had grown! I must see the _appartement_.
This was the salon.

I looked around me for the first time. Nothing in it save the
rickettiness of a faded rep suite arranged primly around the walls, and
a few bookshelves stuffed with tattered volumes suggested Paragot. The
round centre table, covered with American cloth, and the polished floor
were spotless. Cheap print curtains adorned t