Page:The City of Masks (1918).djvu/122



HE sagacity of M. Mirabeau went far toward nullifying the hastily laid plans of Stuyvesant Smith-Parvis. It was he who suggested a prompt effort to recover the two marked bills that Trotter had handed to his landlady earlier in the day.

Prince Waldemar de Bosky, with a brand new twenty-dollar bill in his possession,—(supplied by the excited Frenchman)—boarded a Lexington Avenue car and in due time mounted the steps leading to the front door of the lodging house kept by Mrs. Dulaney. Ostensibly he was in search of a room for a gentleman of refinement and culture; Mrs. Dulaney's house had been recommended to him as first class in every particular. The landlady herself showed him a room, fourth-floor front, just vacated (she said) by a most refined gentleman engaged in the phonograph business. It was her rule to demand references from prospective lodgers, but as she had been in the business a great many years it was now possible for her to distinguish a gentleman the instant she laid eyes on him, so it would only be necessary for the present applicant to pay the first week's rent in advance. He could then move in at once.

With considerable mortification, she declared that she wouldn't insist on the "advance,"—knowing gentlemen as perfectly as she did,—were it not for the fact that