, the next time he comes, point him out to me."

The next time proved to be the next day. The person shown to me was a
short man with gray hair, a rather neglected person and a face deeply
pitted with the small-pox, which seemed to make him about fifty years of
age. He frequently dipped in a large snuffbox; and seemed to be giving
to my remarks an attention I might consider either flattering or
inquisitive, as I pleased; but a certain air of gentleness and integrity
in this supposed police-spy inclined me to the kinder interpretation. I
said so to the waiter, who had plumed himself on discovering a spy.

"_Parbleu_!" he replied, "they always put on that honeyed manner to hide
their game."

Two days later, on a Sunday, at the hour of vespers, in one of my
rambles about old Paris--for which, as you know, I always had a taste--I
happened to enter the church of Saint-Louis-en-l'Ile, the parish church
of the remote quarter of the city which bears that name. This church
is a building of very little interest, no matter what historians and
certain "Guides to Paris" may say. I should therefore have passed
rapidly through it if the remarkable talent of the organist who was
performing part of the service had not induced me to remain.

To say that the playing of that man realized my ideal is giving it high
praise, for I dare say you will remember that I always distinguished
between organ-players and organists, a superior order of nobility the
title of which is not to be given unwittingly.

The service over, I had a curiosity to see the face of so eminent an
artist buried in that out-of-the-way place. Accordingly I posted myself
near the door of the organ loft, to see him as he left the church--a
thing I certainly would not have done for a crowned head; but great
artists, after all, are they not kings by divine right?

Imagine my amazement when, after waiting a few minutes, instead of
seeing a totally unknown face I saw that of a man in whom I recognized
my listener at the Cafe des Arts. But that is not all: behind him came
the semblance of a human being in whose crooked legs and bushy
tangled hair I recognized by old tri-monthly providence, my banker, my
_money-bringer_,--in a word my worthy friend, the mysterious dwarf.

I did not escape, myself, his vigilant eye, and I saw him point me out
to the organist with an eager gesture. The latter turned hastily to
look at me and then, without further demonstration, continued his wa