et the chill before dawn found us blinking sleepily
at a blue-bloused porter who, throwing open the carriage door, curtly
announced that we were in Paris.

Then followed a fruitless search for Placidia's luggage, a hunt which
was closed by Placidia recovering her registration ticket (with a
fragment of candy adhering to it) from one of the multifarious pockets
of her ulster, and finding that the luggage had been registered on to
Marseilles. "Will they charge duty on tobacco?" she inquired blandly, as
she watched the Customs examination of our things. "I've such a lot of
cigars in my boxes."

There was an Old-Man-of-the-Sea-like tenacity in Placidia's smiling
impuissance. She did not know one syllable of French. A new-born babe
could not have revealed itself more utterly incompetent. I verily
believe that, despite our haste, we would have ended by escorting
Placidia across Paris, and ensconcing her in the Marseilles train, had
not Providence intervened in the person of a kindly disposed polyglot
traveller. So, leaving Placidia standing the picture of complacent
fatuosity in the midst of a group consisting of this new champion and
three porters, we sneaked away.

[Illustration: Treasure Trove]

Grey dawn was breaking as we drove towards St. Lazare Station, and the
daily life of the city was well begun. Lights were twinkling in the dark
interiors of the shops. Through the mysterious atmosphere figures loomed
mistily, then vanished into the gloom. But we got no more than a vague
impression of our surroundings. Throughout the interminable length of
drive across the city, and the subsequent slow train journey, our
thoughts were ever in advance.

The tardy winter daylight had scarcely come before we were jolting in a
_fiacre_ over the stony streets of Versailles. In the gutters, crones
were eagerly rummaging among the dust heaps that awaited removal. In
France no degradation attaches to open economies. Housewives on their
way to fetch Gargantuan loaves or tiny bottles of milk for the matutinal
_cafe-au-lait_ cast searching glances as they passed, to see if among
the rubbish something of use to them might not be lurking. And at one
alluring mound an old gentleman of absurdly respectable exterior
perfunctorily turned over the scraps with the point of his cane.

We had heard of a hotel, and the first thing we saw of it we liked. That
was a pair of sabots on the mat at the foot of the staircase. Pausing
only to remove the d