iends of mine who
are motoring, and I shall stop at the Royal."

Joseph's face would have put radium to shame, with the light it
generated.

"Monsieur is not joking? He is in earnest?" the poor fellow stammered.

"Most certainly. And when we meet on the Riviera, we will talk over a
scheme for your future of which I've been thinking. If you would like
to buy Finois of your patron, and two or three other animals only
less admirable than he, setting up in business for yourself, I think I
know a man who might advance you the money."

"Oh, Monsieur!"

Had there been a little more of the French, or a little less of the
Swiss, in honest Joseph's blood, I think that he would have fallen on
his knees and rained kisses on my mild-stained boots. The Swiss upped
the balance, luckily for us both, and kept him erect; but there was a
suspicious glitter in his deep eyes, and a sudden pinkness of his
respectable brown nose, which gave to his "Oh, Monsieur!" more meaning
than a volume of protestations.

His hand came out impulsively, then flew back humbly to his side, but
I put out mine and grasped it.

"Monsieur, I would die for you," he said.

"I would prefer," I returned, "that you should live--for Innocentina."

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXVII

The Strange Mushroom

"Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with
my face?"
--SHAKESPEARE.

When Joseph had gone, with his pockets and his heart both full to
bursting, I felt much like the captain of a small fishing vessel,
wrecked in strange seas, who has seen his comrades depart on rafts,
while he stayed on board his sinking ship alone with three biscuits
and a gill of water. There was also a certain resemblance between me
and a well-meaning plant which has been pulled up by its roots just as
it had begun to grow nicely, and then stuck into the earth again,
upside down, to do the best it can.

I was not quite sure yet which was up or down, and which way I had
better grow, if at all. There was, however, an attraction in a
southerly direction: letters were to be forwarded to me at Grenoble,
and there would probably be one from Jack or Molly Winston, saying
when and where they might be expected to come upon the scene with
Mercedes. Finding me stranded, they would doubtless take pity upon my
forlornness, and offer me a lift in their car, down to the Riviera.
And to the Riviera I still felt strongly im