after a pause, "I have news of all sorts--news which
goes to prove that you are quite right to take an apartment instead
of going to the hotel. The Mangles arrived here this morning--Mangles
frere, Mangles soeur, and Miss Cahere. I say, Cartoner--" He paused, and
examined his own boots with a critical air.

"I say, Cartoner, how old do you put me?"

"Fifty."

"All that, mon cher?--all that? Old enough to play the part of an old
fool who excels all other fools."

Cartoner took up his pen again. He had suddenly thought of something to
put down, and in his odd, direct way proceeded to write, while Deulin
watched him.

"I say," said the Frenchman at length, and Cartoner paused, pen in
hand--"what would you think of me if I fell in love with Netty Cahere?"

"I should think you a very lucky man if Netty Cahere fell in love with
you," was the reply.

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.

"Yes," he said. "I have known you a good many years, and have gathered
that that is your way of looking at things. You want your wife to be in
love with you. Odd! I suppose it is English. Well, I don't know if there
is any harm done, but I certainly had a queer sensation when I saw Miss
Cahere suddenly this morning. You think her a nice girl?"

"Very nice," replied Cartoner, gravely.

Deulin looked at him with an odd smile, but Cartoner was looking at the
letter before him.

"What I like about her is her quiet ways," suggested Deulin,
tentatively.

"Yes."

Then they lapsed into silence, while Cartoner thought of his letter.
Deulin, to judge from a couple of sharp sighs which caught him unawares,
must have been thinking of Netty Cahere. At length the Frenchman rose
and took his leave, making an appointment to dine with Cartoner that
evening.

Out in the street he took off his hat to high heaven again.

"More lies!" he murmured, humbly.

IX

THE SAND-WORKERS

At the foot of the steep and narrow Bednarska--the street running down
from the Cracow Faubourg to the river--there are always many workers.
It is here that the bathing-houses and the boat-houses are. Here lie the
steamers that ply slowly on the shallow river. Here, also, is a trade in
timber where from time to time one of the smaller rafts that float from
the Carpathians down to Dantzic is moored and broken up. Here, also, are
loafers, who, like flies, congregate naturally near the water.

A few hundred yards higher up the river, between the Bednarska and