"Ah! I am not proud of it, believe me. However, never mind. No doubt you
received the letter in which I told you I was going to follow the young
men who seemed to recognize Gustave?"

"Yes, yes--go on!"

"Well, as soon as they entered the cafe, into which I had followed them,
they began drinking, probably to drive away their emotion. After that
they apparently felt hungry. At all events they ordered breakfast. I
followed their example. The meal, with coffee and beer afterward, took
up no little time, and indeed a couple of hours had elapsed before they
were ready to pay their bill and go. Good! I supposed they would now
return home. Not at all. They walked down the Rue Dauphin; and I saw
them enter another cafe. Five minutes later I glided in after them; and
found them already engaged in a game of billiards."

At this point Father Absinthe hesitated; it is no easy task to recount
one's blunders to the very person who has suffered by them.

"I seated myself at a little table," he eventually resumed, "and asked
for a newspaper. I was reading with one eye and watching with the other,
when a respectable-looking man entered, and took a seat beside me. As
soon as he had seated himself he asked me to let him have the paper when
I had finished with it. I handed it to him, and then we began talking
about the weather. At last he proposed a game of bezique. I declined,
but we afterward compromised the matter by having a game of piquet. The
young men, you understand, were still knocking the balls about. We began
by playing for a glass of brandy each. I won. My adversary asked for
his revenge, and we played two games more. I still kept on winning.
He insisted upon another game, and again I won, and still I drank--and
drank again--"

"Go on, go on."

"Ah! here's the rub. After that I remember nothing--nothing either
about the man I had been playing with or the young men. It seems to me,
however, that I recollect falling asleep in the cafe, and that a long
while afterward a waiter came and woke me and told me to go. Then I
must have wandered about along the quays until I came to my senses,
and decided to go to your lodgings and wait on the stairs until you
returned."

To Father Absinthe's great surprise, Lecoq seemed rather thoughtful
than angry. "What do you think about this chance acquaintance of yours,
papa?" asked the young detective.

"I think he was following me while I was following the others, and that
he entered th