ho had stolen in with that air of delicacy and of
almost literary refinement which belongs to his gentle profession) had
lathered me. A nick he gave my chin at the shock made my countenance
all argent and gules, and the visitor entering saw me thus emblazoned,
while the barber and Charles, "like two wild men supporters of a
shield," could only stare at the untimely apparition.

"Do you know him, Charles?" I asked, not recognizing my guest, and
putting over my painted face a mask of wet toweling.

"I know him intimately," replied my jester-in-ordinary: "I would thank
Monsieur Paul just to tell me his name. Do you remember, monsieur, a
sort of beggar, with a wagon and a stylish horse and a pretty wife,
who limped a bit with his right hand, or perhaps his left hand? Does
monsieur know what I mean? He used to come and see us at Passy; and
monsieur even had some traffic with him in a little matter of two
chickens."

"Father Joliet!" I cried.

"Present!" shouted the personage thus designated at my appeal to his
name. I turned round, toweled, and he grasped my hands. The unusual
hour, appropriate as I supposed only to some porter or other
stipendiary visitor of my hotel, caused to shine out with startling
refulgence the morning splendors in which Papa Joliet had arrayed
himself. He wore a courtly dress, appropriate to the most formal
possible ceremony; his black suit was glossy; his hat was glossy;
his varnished pumps were more than glossy--they were phosphorescent.
Gloves only were wanting to his honest hands.

[Illustration: PERRUQUIER.]

Soaped, napkined and generally extinguished, I could only stammer,
"You here in Brussels? What a droll meeting!"

"Wherefore droll?" asked Joliet, with a huge surprise, which lasted
him all through his next sentence. "I come here to marry my daughter.
Everything is ready; we count on your presence at the wedding; the
lawyer has drawn up the contract; and the breakfast is now cooking at
the best restaurant in the place."

"Francine's wedding, my dear Joliet!" I exclaimed. And, going back to
my apprehensions at her furtive disappearance from Carlsruhe, and
to my conjectures of some amorous mystery between her and her Yankee
traducer, Kraaniff, I added gravely, "It is very creditable!"

"How, creditable--and droll?" repeated the honest man, evidently much
surprised at my own accumulating surprises. "Did not you hear?"

[Illustration: FATHER JOLIET.]

"Not the faintest word," I sa