suspicion seemed more than justified when she again said Place
Monge instead of Square Monge, the former being nearly half a mile
farther. He almost collapsed when she finally got down and not only
handed him the legal fare without dispute but double the usual
pourboire.

"Toujours de meme ces femmes-la!" he growled, philosophically. Which
meant that women were pretty much alike,--you never could tell what
one of them would do.

Mlle. Fouchette, quite indifferent at any time to the private judgment
of the cab-driving world, now silently and swiftly pursued the uneven
tenor of her thoughts, not yet manifest. She hurried along the sombre
walls of the giant caserne de la garde on the Rue Ortolan, plunged
across the crowded Rue Mouffetard, and entered the picturesque little
wine-shop on the corner.

It was a low, grim, two-story affair in time-worn stone, the door and
windows heavily grilled in the elaborate and artistic wrought-iron
work of the middle ages. A heavy oaken door supplemented the big
barred gate and added to the ancient prison-like appearance of the
place. Against the grilles of the Rue Mouffetard hung specimens of the
filthy illustrated Paris papers, either the pictures or text of which
would debar them from any respectable English-speaking community. Over
the door opening into the Rue du Pot de Fer and below a lamp of that
exquisite iron-work which is now one of the lost arts was displayed a
small bush, intimating that, in spite of the strong improbability,
good wine was to be had inside.

While a casual glance showed that the rooms above could not be high
enough of ceiling for an ordinary individual to stand upright, the
flowers in the little square recessed and grilled windows showed that
this upper portion was inhabited. It was connected with the wine-shop
below by a narrow and very much worn stone staircase, which ascended
"a tire-bouchon," or corkscrew fashion, like the steep steps of a
light-house.

As to the general reputation of the neighborhood, Mlle. Fouchette knew
it to be "assez mauvaise,"--tolerably bad,--though it was not this
knowledge that induced her to complete her journey on foot.

Her entrance caused a subdued but perceptible flutter among the
occupants of the resort. These were, at the moment, four
respectable-looking men in blouses, an old gentleman in the last stage
of genteel rustiness, and a couple of camelots in the second stage of
drunkenness,--that of undying friendship. T