acquaintances."

I was silent for a moment.

"I am here in search of some one," I told Louis. "It isn't a very
pleasant mission, and the memory of it is always with me."

"A search!" Louis repeated thoughtfully. "Paris is a large place,
monsieur."

"On the contrary," I answered, "it is small enough if a man will but
play the game. A man, who knows his Paris, must be in one of
half-a-dozen places some time during the day."

"It is true," Louis admitted. "Yet monsieur has not been successful."

"It has been because some one has warned the man of whom I am in
search!" I declared.

"There are worse places," he remarked, "in which one might be forced
to spend one's time."

"In theory, excellent, Louis," I said. "In practice, I am afraid I
cannot agree with you. So far," I declared, gloomily, "my pilgrimage
has been an utter failure. I cannot meet, I cannot hear of, the man
who I know was flaunting it before the world three weeks ago."

Louis shrugged his shoulders.

"Monsieur can do no more than seek," he remarked. "For the rest, one