nd listened, and in a moment
or two Miss Janet awoke also.

"Janet, do you hear that?"

"It's a child crying. It's just outside the door."

"It sounds like Jean."

"Nonsense, my dear!"

But Anne switched on the light and went to see for herself; and there,
in the tiny anteroom that separated the bedroom from the corridor, she
found the basket--a new Pharoah's daughter before a new little Moses in
the bulrushes. In bewilderment she brought the ark into the room, and
read the letter addressed to Janet and herself. She burst into tears.
All she said was:--

"Oh, Janet, why couldn't he have told us?"

And then she fell to hugging the child to her bosom.

Meanwhile Aristide Pujol, clad in his goat-skin cap and coat, valise in
hand, was plodding through the rain in search of the elusive phantom,
Fortune; gloriously certain that he had assured Jean's future, yet with
such a heartache as he had never had in his life before.

V

THE ADVENTURE OF THE PIG'S HEAD

Once upon a time Aristide Pujol found himself standing outside his Paris
residence, No. 213 _bis_, Rue Saint Honore, without a penny in the
world. His last sou had gone to Madame Bidoux, who kept a small green
grocer's shop at No. 213 _bis_ and rented a ridiculously small back room
for a ridiculously small weekly sum to Aristide whenever he honoured the
French capital with his presence. During his absence she forwarded him
such letters as might arrive for him; and as this was his only permanent
address, and as he let Madame Bidoux know his whereabouts only at vague
intervals of time, the transaction of business with Aristide Pujol,
"Agent, No. 213 _bis_, Rue Saint Honore, Paris," by correspondence was
peculiarly difficult.

He had made Madame Bidoux's acquaintance in the dim past; and he had
made it in his usual direct and electric manner. Happening to walk down
the Rue Saint Honore, he had come upon tragedy. Madame Bidoux, fat, red
of face, tearful of eye and strident of voice, held in her arms a
little mongrel dog--her own precious possession--which had just been run
over in the street, and the two of them filled the air with wailings and
vociferation. Aristide uncovered his head, as though he were about to
address a duchess, and smiled at her engagingly.

"Madame," said he, "I perceive that your little dog has a broken leg. As
I know all about dogs, I will, with your permission, set the limb, put
it into splints and guarantee a perfect cure. Ne