Presently he came hurrying back again, and this trip I discovered he was
following a girl. But yes! A market girl. Only a slip of a thing--I
could not see her well--a dainty piece she seemed, supple as a kitten,
who threaded her way with a basket on her arm. I caught a flash of bare
ankle white as milk, the sheen of her hair, smooth like a raven's wing:
and she was gone, with Bibi-Ri at her skirts.

Three times I saw them so, through the drifting chaffering throng.

"The rogue!" I murmured. "He has found a better amusement than getting
himself flayed by me. Evidently!"

At the very word came a swift clatter of sandals and who should burst
into the shop upon me but that same Bibi-Ri. I had a finger lifted to
accuse him, but I stopped at sight of his face.

"Dumail!" he cried. "Hide me!"

My faith, he took one's breath away.

"Hide me and say nothing!" he implored.

Well, then I thought he was simply up to some of his jokes again. You
understand there is no actual hiding in a penal settlement, where we all
live in the eye of the police. Nevertheless I obeyed, planted him in my
chair, flung a cloth about his neck and slapped on a great mask of
lather.

I had him well settled under the razor when a shadow edged across the
doorway. Glancing over his shoulder, Bibi-Ri made a jump to rise.

"Animal!" I protested. "Will you take care!"

But I saw him staring with a strange fear.

Just outside by the threshold stood a man, an amazingly tall man,
looking in at us. The sunlight descended on him there like the flood of
a proscenium and he himself might have seemed a player in some stage
burlesque. Yes, one might have smiled at first glimpse of him: a
travesty of fashion in his long black redingote and varnished high hat
of ancient form which added the touch of caricature to his height. One
might have smiled, I say ... but the smile would have frozen next
instant as a ripple freezes on a street puddle.

His face was a moist and shining white, the white of a corpse under the
icy spray of the Morgue. He was old, of reverend years, though still
straight and strong as a poplar. And with that mouth of painted passion
and a great nose curved like a saber and the glittering tiger eyes in
the skull of him--I leave you to imagine any one more appalling.

Close behind him came another: a bandy-legged, squat fellow like a
little black spider, in attendance.

Even then, before knowing, I shrank from them both. They resembled the