s. It is a bad-smelling business, but it doesn't poison the nose of
Europe, because it is so far away. Still, smells are brought over in
samples by missionaries and men like you, and people say 'Faugh!' Do you
think he did not take that into his consideration when he planned the
affair and laid down the factory? If you think so, you would be vastly
mistaken. He has agents everywhere--I have met them, apologists
everywhere--in the Press, in Society, in the Church. The Roman Catholic
Church is entirely his; he is triple-ringed with politicians, priests,
publicists, and financiers, all holding their noses to keep out the stench
and all singing the _Laus Leopold_ at the top of their voices.

"Ah! you don't know Europe. I do, from the Ballplatz to Willhelmstrasse,
from the Winter Palace to the Elysee, my trade has brought me everywhere,
and if you could see with my eyes, you would see the great, smooth plain
of ice you hope to warm with your poor breath in the name of Humanity."

"At all events I shall try," replied Adams, rising to go.

"Well, try, but don't get frozen in making the trial----"

"Oh, the gun--well, look here--you are starting on another hunting
expedition, it seems to me, a more dangerous one, too, than the last, for
there is no forest where one loses oneself more fatally than the forest of
social reform--pay me when you come back."

"Very well," said Adams, laughing.

"Only if you are successful though."

"Very well."

"And, see here, in any event come and tell me the result. _Bon jour_,
monsieur, and a word in your ear----"

The old man was opening the shop door.

"Yes?"

"Don't go."

Schaunard closed his door and retired to his office to chuckle over his
joke, and Adams walked off down the Rue de la Paix.

Paris was wearing her summer dress; it was the end of the season, and the
streets were thronged with foreigners--the Moor from Morocco, in his white
burnous, elbowed the Slav from Moscow; the Eiffel Tower had become a
veritable Tower of Babel; the theatres were packed, the _cafes_ crowded.
Austrian, Russian, English, and American gold was pouring into the
city--pouring in ceaselessly from the four corners of the world and by
every great express disgorging at the Gare du Nord, the Gare de l'Est, and
the Gare de Lyons.

To Adams, fresh from the wilderness and the forest, fresh from those
great, silent, sunlit plains of the elephant country and the tremendous
cavern of the jungle, the city