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 exploits. He was certainly in no mood for returning to his lonely abode and playing Noémi Janvier records on Mme. Choiseul's victrola,—arias from Samson and Die Walküre, mournfully evocative of enchanted nights forever ended. And in his bedroom the treasured terra cotta bust of Voltaire, with its grin; he wanted to stay out in the streets of Paris and find out once and for all what Voltaire had been grinning about! Surreptitiously he felt in his pockets to ascertain how much money was there.

"I'd like to get into an open carriage and drive straight across the city, to the top of Montmartre," he said. "Will you dine with me?"

"Volontiers, Monsieur!"

The journey was made in silence. It's funny, Grover reflected, to be driving across Paris so sort of intimately with somebody whom, you may find, after you've seen a few of his friends, you'll have a hard job living down. Who may have done time, for all you know to the contrary. Who would be sardonic if he had a little more energy; cynical if he didn't say such truish things, once you've analyzed them. Who would think you a romantic ass if he could see how excited you are by this simple adventure. Who is so bored by the things that exalt you that you wonder what on earth he could be exalted by, if anything. And with his long fingers and fox-like chin and instantaneous registration of every passing phenomenon, how can he be so damned apathetic? Is that the ul-