th closed eyes, innocently sleeping; the population of
pleasure-seekers and pleasure-mongers has disappeared as completely as
if some magician had waved his wand, and in its place the streets teem
with the worker--the early, industrious shopkeeper and the householder
bent upon a profitable morning's marketing. Max, gazing from the
_fiacre_ with attentive eyes, followed the varying scenes, while his
horse wound a careful and laborious way up the cobble-paved streets, and
noted with an artist's eye the black, hurrying figures of the men,
cloaked and hooded against the cold, and the black, homely figures of
the women, silhouetted against the sharp greens and yellows of the laden
vegetable stalls at which they chattered and bargained.

It was all noisy, interesting, alive; and us he watched the pleasant,
changing pictures, his courage strengthened, his belief in his own star
mounted higher; the decision of last night stood out, as so few
nocturnal decisions can stand out, unashamed and justified in the light
of day.

At the corner where the rue Andre de Sarte joins the rue Ronsard he
dismissed his cab, and with a young inquisitiveness in all that
concerned the quarter, paused to look into the old curio shop, no longer
closed as on the previous night, but open and inviting in its dingy
suggestion of mysteries unsolved.

Now--at this moment of recording the boy's doings--the curio shop no
longer exists at the corner of the rue Andre de Sarte; it has faded into
the unknown with its coppers and brasses, its silver and tinsel, its
woollen and silk stuffs; but on that January morning of his first coming
it still held place, its musty perfumes still conjured dreams, its open
doorway, festooned with antique objects, still offered tempting glimpses
into the long and dim interior, where an old Jew, presiding genius of
the place, lurked like a spider in the innermost circle of his web.

Max lingered, drawn into self-forgetfulness by the blending of faded
hues, the atmosphere of must and spices, the air of age indescribable
that veiled the place. He loitered about the windows, peeped in at the
doorway, would even have ventured across the threshold had not a
ponderous figure, rising silently from a heap of cushions upon the floor
of the inmost room, sent him hastening round the corner, guiltily
conscious that it was new lamps and not old he was here to light.

The interest of his mission flowed back, sharpened by the momentary
brea