"Seraphine, allow me to pres-ent Mr. Chezter."

She explained that this Mme. Alexandre was her "neighbor of the next
door," and Chester remembered her sign: "Laces and Embroideries."

"Scipion," said Castanado to a short, swarthy, broad-bearded man, "I
have the honor to make you acquaint' with my friend Mr. Chezter."

Chester pressed the enveloping hand of "S. Beloiseau, Artisan in
Ornamental Iron-work."

"Also, Mr. Chezter, Mr. Rene Ducatel; but with him you are already
acquaint', I think, eh?"

Chester shook hands with a small, dapper, early-gray, superdignified
man, recalling his sign: "Antiques in Furniture, Glass, Bronze, Plate,
China, and Jewelry." M. Ducatel seemed to be already taking leave.
His "anceztral 'ome," he said, was far up-town; he had dropped in
solely to borrow--showing it--the _Courrier des Etats-Unis_.

That journal, Castanado remarked to Chester as at a corner table he
poured him a glass of cordial, brought the war, the trenches, the poilu
and the boche closer than any other they knew. Beloiseau and Mme.
Alexandre, he softly explained, had come in quite unlooked-for to
discuss the great strife and might depart at any moment. Then the
reading!

But Chester himself interested those two and they stayed. When he said
that Beloiseau's sidewalk samples had often made him covet some excuse
for going in and seeing both the stock and the craftsman, "That was