mes registered but frequently
did not. Yet we were on most affable terms when, stuffed to repletion,
we leaned back and lighted cigarettes.

"Professor," Tommy suggested, "I think if you stay with us you'll have a
better chance to find that child!"

Our guest beamed agreeably at the appelative, then looked toward me.

"I'm sure of it," I said. "We've nowhere to go but anywhere, and that
ought to fall in with your plans."

"_Pardieu_, you overwhelm me! You mean I may sail about with you,
searching?"

"Nothing simpler," I assured him. "We've rather taken a fancy to you,
haven't we, Tommy?"

"Double it," Tommy laughed. "We agreed last night that you looked like a
million-dollar bill to us!"

"Oh, my boys," Monsieur sputtered with embarrassment and pleasure, "you
disarm my power to thank you--see, I blush!"

"Damned if he isn't," Tommy grinned at me. "What d'you know about this
little gezabo, anyhow!"

Monsieur's face grew more composed as he showed his interest in a new
word.

"You say--gazebo?" he asked, blandly. "Is that not a belvedere?"

"Gazebo is, yes; but I said gezabo--that's you!"

"Your American Indian language?"

"Sure thing. Pure talk. If you're interested in Indians, stick around.
Why not get the Havana police to help us hunt the kiddie?"--I had known
that before long Tommy would be using a first personal pronoun.

"Bah! They are of no value! But even I have small hope of finding her.
The report was written nearly six years ago, and she has been gone
upwards of twenty years."

"So it's a she," Tommy looked over at me and nodded. "Well, nearly six
years, and upwards of twenty, plus what she was when she left home,
leads me to believe the lady's almost old enough to take care of
herself!"

Monsieur considered this a great joke, exclaiming:

"It is not so much as that! She is but three--to me, always three! Yet,
as you say, I might better find her with you than anywhere! A despairing
search, my boys!"

Tommy's eyes were twinkling as he murmured sympathetically:

"If it's a three-year-old you want, there's a place in Havana called
'Casa de Beneficencia Maternidad,' where furtive-eyed damsels leave
kiddies at twilight, ring the doorbell, and beat it. You might pick up
one there, as a last resort."

"But--but," Monsieur began to sputter, when I threw an orange at Tommy,
explaining to our agitated guest that he was a cut-up devoid of ideas,
really an intellectual outcast.

"Well," he crie