so, and drawing towards him a
cigarette-case that lay upon the table.

"Yes, thank you," replied Cartoner, lightly. He seemed, too, to be gay
this morning.

"Don't thank me--thank the gods," replied Deulin, with a sudden gravity.

"Well," said Cartoner presently, without ceasing to write, "what do you
want?"

Deulin glanced at his friend with a gleam of suspicion.

"What do I want?" he inquired, innocently.

"Yes. You want something. I always know when you want something. When
you are most idle you are most occupied."

"Ah!"

Cartoner wrote on while Deulin lighted a cigarette and smoked half of it
with a leisurely enjoyment of its bouquet.

"There is a certain smell in the Rue Royale, left-hand side looking
towards the Column--the shady side, after the street has been
watered--that my soul desires," said the Frenchman, at length.

"When are you going?" asked Cartoner, softly.

"I am not going; I wish I were. I thought I was last night. I thought
I had done my work here, and that it would be unnecessary to wait on
indefinitely for----"

"For what?"

"For the upheaval," explained Deulin, with an airy wave of his
cigarette.

"This morning--" he began. And then he waited for Cartoner to lay aside
his pen and lean back in his chair with the air of thoughtful attention
which he seemed to wear towards that world in which he moved and had his
being. Cartoner did exactly what was expected of him.

"This morning I picked up a scrap of information." He drew towards him
a newspaper, and with a pencil made a little drawing on the margin.
The design was made in three strokes. It was not unlike a Greek cross,
Deulin threw the paper across the table.

"You know that man?"

"I do not know his name," replied Cartoner.

"No; no one knows that," replied Deulin. "It is one of the very few
mysteries of the nineteenth century. All the others are cleared up."

Cartoner made no answer. He sat looking at the design, thinking,
perhaps, with wonder of the man who in this notoriety-loving age was
still content to be known only by a mark.

"Up to the present I have not attached much importance to those rumors
which, happily, have never reached the newspaper," said Deulin, after
a pause. "One has supposed that, as usual, Poland is ready for an
upheaval. But the upheaval does not come. That has been the status quo
for many years here. Suppose--suppose, my friend, that they manufacture
their own opportunity, or agree with som