bowl,
then the pipe. He reached out a slow hand for the pipe, and was taking
it up, when his glance fell on the keys and the writing material. He put
the pipe down, looked up at the door through which the little old woman
had gone, gazed round the room, took up the keys, but soon put them
down again with a sigh, and settled back in his chair. Now his gaze
alternated between that long lane, sloping into shadow between the
candles, and the keys.

Medallion threw a leg over the fence and came in a few steps to the
door. He opened it quietly and entered. In the dark he felt his way
along the wall to the door of the Avocat's room, opened it, and thrust
in his ungainly, whimsical face.

"Ha!" he laughed with quick-winking eyes. "Evening, Garon. Live the Code
Napoleon! Pipes for two." A change came slowly over the Avocat. His eyes
drew away from that vista between the candles, and the strange distant
look faded out of them.

"Great is the Code Napoleon!" he said mechanically. Then, presently:
"Ah, my friend, Medallion!"

His first words were the answer to a formula which always passed between
them on meeting. As soon as Garon had said them, Medallion's lanky body
followed his face, and in a moment he had the Avocat's hand in his,
swallowing it, of purpose crushing it, so that Monsieur Garon waked
up smartly and gave his visitor a pensive smile. Medallion's cheerful
nervous vitality seldom failed to inspire whom he chose to inspire with
Something of his own life and cheerfulness. In a few moments both the
Avocat and himself were smoking, and the contents of the steaming bowl
were divided between them. Medallion talked on many things. The little
old housekeeper came in, chirped a soft good-evening, flashed a small
thankful smile at Medallion, and, after renewing the bowl and lighting
two more tall candles, disappeared. Medallion began with the parish,
passed to the law, from the law to Napoleon, from Napoleon to France,
and from France to the world, drawing out from the Avocat something of
his old vivacity and fire. At last Medallion, seeing that the time was
ripe, turned his glass round musingly in his fingers before him and
said:

"Benoit, Annette's husband, died to-day, Garon. You knew him. He went
singing--gone in the head, but singing as he used to do before he
married--or got drunk! Perhaps his youth came back to him when he was
going to die, just for a minute."

The Avocat's eye gazed at Medallion earnestly now,