ey ever meet
again? He sincerely hoped not.

As he walked, he tried to formulate some plan for the future. To remain
further in Trouville was impossible. Besides, he would have once more to
sacrifice his small belongings and leave the hotel without settling his
account.

He was debating whether it would be wise to return to Paris. Would he,
in his genteel garb, be recognised by some agent of the Surete as "The
American"? There was danger. Was it wise to court it?

At a point of the road where it ran down upon the rocky beach, upon
which the moonlit sea was lapping lazily, he paused, and sat upon the
stump of a tree.

And there he reflected until the pink dawn spread, and upon the horizon
he saw the early morning steamer crossing from Havre.

He was broke!

Perhaps Ted Patten had treated him just as he had treated Adolphe. That
letter might, after all, be only a blind.

"He may have got money, and then written to frighten me," he muttered to
himself. "Strange that he didn't give an address. But I know where I
shall find him sooner or later. Harry's in Paris is his favourite place,
or the American Bar at the Grand at Brussels. Oh, yes, I shall find him.
First let me turn myself round."

Then, rising, he walked back to Trouville in the brilliant morning, and
going up to his room, went to bed.

Whenever he found himself in an hotel with no money to pay the bill, he
always feigned illness, and so awakened the sympathies of the
management. In some cases he had lain ill for weeks, living on luxuries,
and promising to settle for it all when he was able to get about.

He had done the trick at the Adlon, in Berlin, till found out, and again
at the Waldorf-Astoria, in New York. This time he intended to "work the
wheeze" on the Palace at Trouville, though he knew that he could not
live there long, for the short season was nearly at an end, and in about
three weeks the hotel would be closed.

But for a fortnight he remained in bed--or, at least, he was in bed
whenever anyone came in. The doctor who was called prescribed for acute
rheumatism, and the way in which the patient shammed pain was pathetic.

This enforced retirement was in one way irksome. Wrapped in his
dressing-gown, he, after a week in bed, was sufficiently well to sit at
the window and look down upon the gay crowd on the _plage_ below, and
sometimes he even found himself so well that he could appreciate a
cigar.

The manager, of course, sympathised wit