n there's that jeweller man from Paris--has a shop in the
Galerie Charles Trois. She strolled into his place to buy the gold bag
you saw on the beggars' table and he went wild about her. Cheek of him!
Sent her a bracelet she had to send back. How dare a fellow like that
have the impudence to fall in love with a girl like her?"

"Cats may look at kings, and I suppose kings embrace queens, don't they?
You needn't be so mad. You come from a democratic country, and Grandma
Carleton's father was a grocer."

"He was a super-grocer. And, anyhow, Americans are different."

"Some of them fly high nowadays, eh, Mr. Air-pirate?"

Dick laughed. "You haven't told me yet what happened next at the
beggars' feast, and how you found out who _she_ was."

"Nothing happened to any one except me. They went on feasting and gave
her some more chestnuts. I don't know what she'd given them! But she'd
probably rubbed the lucky hump and paid for it. I was dying to go up and
speak to my pals, and perhaps be introduced to the girl, but I hadn't
got quite cheek enough, and they seemed to be having such a good time,
it was a shame to interrupt. The elf was talking, with explosive sort of
gestures in between mouthfuls, evidently telling something very
interesting. And you know, I always pretend to myself in a kind of fairy
story that he's really a person of immense, mysterious influence, a
weird power behind the throne, starting or stopping revolutions. Of
course it's nonsense--all founded on my seeing him with one of the new
revolutionary newspapers in his hand--the ones they allow nowadays to be
sold in the principality, against the Prince, and the Casino, and
everything. But if I were to write a sensational story of Monte Carlo,
that little red-eyed dwarf at the bridge should be the hero. And just as
I was thinking about all that, and tying my second shoe, along came a
taxi with poor Captain Hannaford in it. He'd been into Italy to see
Madame Berenger, the actress, at her villa, which he would like to buy,
and was coming back to lunch; so he made the chauffeur pull up while he
asked if he could drive me home? I said yes, because I saw him lift his
hat to that girl, and I hoped he could tell me something about her."

"What did he tell you?"

"Not so very much. He didn't seem to want to talk about her, I thought.
That didn't surprise me, because he has an idea that women feel disgust
for him and can't bear to look at him if they can help it--al