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 because it was right across the rue from the place where we'd have to draw on our letters of credit from time to time. The nearness to our pieces-of-eight was all this inn had to recommend it and, really, the prices were positively brutal!

Well, for years both me and Hazel had heard what a wild and wicked village Paris was and we set forth to look it over with delicious little quivers of anticipation romping up and down a couple of backs that would give Kitty Gordon pause. We're rarin' to go where deviltry was rampant and we wished to be thoroughly shocked or get our money back, one or the other!

However, as neither of us is in the habit of commuting between Gotham and Paris, we didn't know where to look for a thrill. Several sightseeing invitations were filed with us by the usual tourist parties from Idiotic, Nebraska, and Senseless, Iowa, but these were rejected with thanks. We'd watched these scissorbills perform on the way over and neither of us had any desire to deliberately take punishment in habit-forming doses.

A sign outside the hotel manager's office boasted that they had somebody inside on exhibition who could speak English. That was a barefaced lie, as we found out when we interviewed this braggart. His name was Duprez and he rolled a nasty eye at us and shrugged a vicious shoulder, but honestly he spoke English as if