the world. And instead of taking care of this precious heirloom, he goes
and locks it away in a safe. Ah! you fill me with shame. Monsieur Pujol,
I am sorry I can play no more, I must retire. Stephanie, will you
accompany me?"

And gathering up Stephanie like a bunch of snowdrops, the yellow,
galvanized iron old lady swept out of the room.

The Mayor looked at Aristide and moved his arms dejectedly.

"Such are women," said he.

"My own mother nearly broke her heart because I would not become a
priest," said Aristide.

"I wish I were a Turk," said the Mayor.

"I, too," said Aristide.

He took pouch and papers and rolled a cigarette.

"If there is a man living who can say he has not felt like that at least
once in his life he ought to be exhibited at a fair."

"How well you understand me, my good Pujol," said Monsieur Coquereau.

The next few days passed busily for Aristide. He devoted every spare
hour to his new task. He scrutinized every inch of ground between the
study window and the wall; he drew radiating lines from the point of
the wall whence the miscreant had started homeward and succeeded in
finding more confetti. He cross-examined every purveyor of pierrot shoes
and pig's heads in Perpignan. His researches soon came to the ears of
the police, still tracing the mysterious Jose Puegas. A certain
good-humoured brigadier whose Catalan French Aristide found difficult to
understand, but with whom he had formed a derisory kind of friendship,
urged him to desist from the hopeless task.

"_Jamais de la vie!_" he cried--"The honour of Aristide Pujol is at
stake."

The thing became an obsession. Not only his honour but his future was at
stake. If he discovered the thief, he would be the most talked of person
in Perpignan. He would know how to improve his position. He would rise
to dizzy heights. Perpignan-Ville de Plaisir would acclaim him as its
saviour. The Government would decorate him. And finally, both the Mayor
and Madame Coquereau would place the blushing and adorable Mademoiselle
Stephanie in his arms and her two hundred and fifty thousand francs
dowry in his pocket. Never before had so dazzling a prize shimmered
before him in the near distance.

On the last Saturday night of the Carnival, there was a special _corso_
for the populace in the Avenue des Plantanes, the long splendid Avenue
of plane trees just outside the Porte Notre Dame, which is the special
glory of Perpignan. The masquers danced t