an agonized desire to see her again. I addressed the liveried coachman in my best Spanish, taking off my hat and bowing low.
"'Señor, will you have the great goodness to tell me who is that lady?'
"'Señor,' he replied with equal urbanity, 'it is not correct for coachmen to give rapscallions information as to their employers.'
"'When your Señora bids the rapscallion sit beside her in the carriage and orders you to drive, you will regret your insolence,' said I.
"I turned a haughty back on him; but I felt his lackey's eye fixed disapprovingly on my rags.
"'I will hear the sound,' said I to myself, 'of her silvery English voice, or I will die.'
"Then the door opened, and the beautiful lady entered the carriage; and it was not Joanna.
"The gods were without bowels of compassion for me that day."
Another scrap contains the following:
"Thus have I come to the end of a five years' vagabondage. I started out as a Pilgrim to the Inner Shrine of Truth which I have sought from St. Petersburg to Lisbon, from Taormina to Christiania. I have lived in a spiritual shadowland, dreaming elusive dreams, my better part stayed by the fitful vision of things unseen. Such an exquisite wild-goose-chase has never man undertaken before or since the dear Knight of La Mancha. And now I come to think of it, I don't know what the deuce I have been after, save that instead of pursuing I have all the time been running away.
"In my next quest I must not proclaim my Dulcinea too loudly. When Hedwige's little sister came to me with a doll into which Hedwige had savagely run hatpins so that the stuffing came out, I consoled the weeping infant with a new doll and the assurance that Hedwige was the spitefullest cat as yet evolved from a feline sex. I had no notion at the time of the reason for Hedwige's viciousness. But now I fancy she must have acted according to mediæval superstition and used the doll as Joanna's hated effigy. I remember that the next time I saw her I criticised her straight Teutonic fringe and fanfaronaded on the captivating frizziness of Joanna's hair. The wonder is that Hedwige did not run hatpins into me. The murderer's widow of Prague was built of sterner stuff; she cared not a hempen strand for Joanna, a pale consumptive doxy, according to her picturing, who had jilted me for an eminent swell-mobsman in London."
I spent many happy hours over these scraps, building up the fantastic fairy tale of Paragot's antecedents, and should have gone on reading them for an indefinite time had not Paragot one day discovered me. It was then that I learned the sacrosanctity of private papers.
"I thought, my little Asticot," said he, bending his blue eyes on me, "I thought you were a gentleman."
Only Paragot could have had so crazy a thought. I could not be a gentleman, I reflected, till I had a gold watch-chain. However Paragot expected me to be one without the seal and token of outward adornments, and I promised faithfully to mould myself according to his expectations.
"How much of this nightmare farrago have you read?"
"I know it all by heart, Master," said I.
He took off his old hat and threw it on the bed, and ran his fingers through his hair perplexedly.
"My son," said he at last, "if you were just a common boy I should make you go on your bended knees and lift up your hand and swear that you would not reveal to a living soul the mysteries which these papers contain, and then I should send you to dwell for ever among the tripe-plates. But I see before me a gentleman, a scholar and an artist and I will not submit him to such an indignity."
He put his hand on my head and looked at me in kind irony.
"I will never tell no one, Master," I promised.
"Anyone," he corrected.
"Anyone, Master," I repeated meekly.
"You will wipe it all out of your memory."
I was habitually truthful with Paragot, because he never gave me cause to lie.
"I can't, Master," said I, thinking of my dreams of Joanna.
The seriousness of my tone amused him.
"What has made such an indelible impression on your mind?"
"I can't forget – " I blurted out, moved both by reluctance to yield over my dreams of Joanna and by a desire to show off my familiarity with French, "I can't forget about ces petits pieds si adorés."
The smile died from his face, which assumed a queer, scared expression. He went to the window and stood there so long, that I, in my turn grew scared. I realised dimly what I had done, and I could have bitten my tongue out. I drew near him.
"Master," said I timidly.
He did not seem to hear; presently he picked up his hat from the bed and walked out without taking any notice of me.
We did not refer to the papers again until long afterwards, and though they lay unguarded as before in the old stocking, never till this present day have I set my eyes on them.
CHAPTER IV
One May morning a year after my surprising of Paragot's secret, I awoke later than usual, the three-and-sixpenny clock on the mantelpiece marking eleven, and huddling on my clothes in alarm I left the foul smelling Club room, and ran upstairs to arouse my master.
To my astonishment he was not alone. A stout florid man, wearing a white waistcoat which bellied out like the sail of a racing yacht, a frock coat and general resplendency of garb, stood planted in the middle of the room, while Paragot still in nightshirt but trousered, sat swinging his leg on a corner of the deal table. I noticed the fiddle which Paragot had evidently been playing before his visitor's arrival, lying on the disordered bed.
"Who the devil is this?" cried the fat man angrily.
"This is Mr. Asticot, my private secretary, who cooks my herrings and attends to my correspondence. Usually he cooks two, but if you will join us at breakfast Mr. Hogson – "
"Pogson," bawled the fat man.
"I beg your pardon," said my master sweetly. "If you will join us at breakfast he will cook three."
"Damn your breakfast," said Mr. Pogson.
"Only two then, Asticot. This gentleman has already breakfasted. You will forgive us for not treating you as a stranger."
Mr. Pogson, who was in a rage, thumped the table with his hand.
"I'll give you to understand Mr. Henkendyke, that I am the proprietor of this club. I have bought it with my money, and I'm not going to see it go to eternal glory as it's doing under your management. I'm not like that old ass Ballantyne. I'm a business man and I'm going to run this club for a profit, and if you continue to be manager you'll jolly well have to turn over a new leaf."
"My good friend," said my master, rising and thrusting his hands in his pockets, "you have told me that about ten times; it is getting monotonous."
"The way this place is run," continued Mr. Pogson, unheeding, "is scandalous. Not a blessed account kept. No check on provisions or drink. Every night your servants are drunk."
"As owls," said Paragot.
"And what the dickens
