an expressive
shrug of the shoulders I handed the dirty scrap of paper back to its
fair recipient.

"Alas, Madame," I said, taking care that she should not guess how much
it cost me to give her such advice, "I am afraid that in such cases
there is nothing to be done. If you wish to save your pet you will
have to pay. . ."

"Ah! but, Monsieur," she exclaimed tearfully, "you don't understand.
Carissimo is all the world to me, and this is not the first time, nor
yet the second, that he has been stolen from me. Three times, my good
M. Ratichon, three times has he been stolen, and three times have I
received such peremptory demands for money for his safe return; and
every time the demand has been more and more exorbitant. Less than a
month ago M. le Comte paid three thousand francs for his recovery."

"Monsieur le Comte?" I queried.

"My husband, Sir," she replied, with an exquisite air of hauteur.
"M. le Comte de Nole de St. Pris."

"Ah, then," I continued calmly, "I fear me that Monsieur de Nole de
St. Pris will have to pay again."

"But he won't!" she now cried out in a voice broken with sobs, and
incontinently once more saturated her gossamer handkerchief with her
tears.

"Then I see nothing for it, Madame," I rejoined, much against my will
with a slight touch of impatience, "I see nothing for it but that
yourself . . ."

"Ah! but, Monsieur," she retorted, with a sigh that would have melted
a heart of stone, "that is just my difficulty. I cannot pay . . ."

"Madame," I protested.

"Oh! if I had money of my own," she continued, with an adorable
gesture of impatience, "I would not worry. Mais voila: I have not a
silver franc of my own to bless myself with. M. le Comte is over
generous. He pays all my bills without a murmur--he pays my
dressmaker, my furrier; he loads me with gifts and dispenses charity
on a lavish scale in my name. I have horses, carriages,
servants--everything I can possibly want and more, but I never have
more than a few hundred francs to dispose of. Up to now I have never
for a moment felt the want of money. To-day, when Carissimo is being
lost to me, I feel the entire horror of my position."

"But surely, Madame," I urged, "M. le Comte . . ."

"No, Monsieur," she replied. "M. le Comte has flatly refused this time
to pay these abominable thieves for the recovery of Carissimo. He
upbraids himself for having yielded to their demands on the three
previous occasions. He calls these demands