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Rh rim of the flat hat I watched Chu-Chu as he made his declaration, took his ticket, and stepped back to his car. He shot a quick glance at Rosalie, half-curious and half-amused, at which she shoved out her little chin and passed him with a pout. The octroi men tried to give her a little guff, and I was frightened for a minute as Chu-Chu was going off at a good clip; but Rosaline [sic] snatched her ticket out of the official's hand and came back laughing. She had left the motor running, of course, and the next second we were off along the bank of the Seine after Chu-Chu.

"Your Léontine is a beauty," said Rosalie through the tube. "I don't wonder you're jealous. But that chauffeur has the eyes of a wolf. He looks as if he might be Chu-Chu le Tondeur."

"What do you know about Chu-Chu le Tondeur?" I asked.

"Oh, everybody knows about him. For myself I doubt that there is such a person. Every time there is a murder and robbery people say 'Chu-Chu le Tondeur.'"

I wondered what she would think if she knew that the gentleman with the wolfish eyes was actually none other than the celebrated criminal whose performances had sent shivers down the spine of many a respectable bourgeois or lonely chatelaine in her gloomy country house hidden in the trees. It might also startle her, I thought, if she were to discover that the studious preacher in her cab was, even as Chu-Chu walked from the octroi station to his motor, wondering if it might not be possible to hit him with a shot from an automatic pis-