cool, leafy alleys thronged with children and
nurse-maids, and Monsieur Guignol squeaking and drumming in his
red-curtained box!

How could a young man believe in a sequel to the almost incredible
melodrama in which he had figured, with such a sane and delightful
setting, here in the familiar company of two charming women he had
known?

Besides, all Paris and her police were at his elbow; the olive-wood
box stood between his knees; a smartly respectable taxi and its driver
drove them with the quiet _eclat_ and precision of a private
_employe_; the Arc de Triomphe already rose splendidly above them, and
everything that had once been familiar and reassuring and delightful
lay under his grateful eyes on every side.

And now the taxicab turned into the rue Soleil d'Or--a new street to
Neeland, opened since his student days, and only one square long, with
a fountain in the middle and young chestnut trees already thickly
crowned with foliage lining both sides of the street.

But although the rue Soleil d'Or was a new street to him, Paris
construction is also a rapid affair. The street was faced by charming
private houses built of grey Caen stone; the fountain with its golden
sun-dial, with the seated figure--a life-size replica of Manship's
original in the Metropolitan Museum--serenely and beautifully holding
its place between the Renaissance facades and rows of slender trees.

Summer had not yet burned foliage or flowers; the freshness of spring
itself seemed still to reign there.

Three blue-bloused street-sweepers with hose and broom were washing
the asphalt as their cab slowed down, sounding its horn to warn them
out of the way. And, the spouting hose still in their hands, the
street-cleaners stepped out of the gutter before the pretty private
hotel of Madame la Princesse.

Already a butler was opening the _grille_; already the chauffeur had
swung Neeland's steamer trunk and suitcase to the sidewalk; already
the Princess and Rue were advancing to the house, while Neeland
fumbled in his pocket for the fare.

The butler, bowing, relieved him of the olive-wood box. At the same
instant the blue-bloused man with the hose turned the powerful stream
of water directly into the butler's face, knocking him flat on the
sidewalk; and his two comrades tripped up Neeland, passed a red sash
over his head, and hurled him aside, blinded, half strangled,
staggering at random, tearing furiously at the wide band of woollen
cloth