out a copy of Dickens and a pocket dictionary and spend the most of the afternoon reading and looking out of the window. The personnel of the establishment used to hold me up to the other clients as a very model of industry and perseverance.
Most of these other clients were cabmen, fiacre and taxi drivers. Like all of that class of French working people, they were quiet, orderly, good-natured fellows, full of good-humoured banter and amusing stories in connection with their trade. The second day that I was having déjeuner there one of the taxi drivers, who had just finished his meal, and was about to crank his motor, was hailed by Léontine's butler. I saw Léontine, more superb-looking than ever, come out, get in, and whirl away.
It occurred to me, of course, that for all I knew she might be going even then to keep a rendezvous with Chu-Chu; and it occurred to me also that if the Shearer came to Léontine's house even while I was on the look-out it might not do me a particle of good, as he would be pretty sure to come and go in a taxi, probably cleverly disguised. A good many people came to and went from Léontine's—some in handsome private limousines, others in taxi-autos, and still others in taxicabs or afoot. In the first week of my watching I recognised several members of Ivan's mob, and once Ivan himself.
But for all the folk that came and went I was convinced, at the end of two weeks watching, that Chu-Chu had not got past me. For all I knew he might be, and very likely was, watching the house from some point not far from where I was stationed. I began to be afraid that we might be alternating
