About eight o'clock we drove to a little restaurant in the Bois de Boulogne, dined quietly, and about nine set out on foot to walk to the villa. There was a brief lull in the storm, but very soon the rain fell again heavily, and as, of course, we took no umbrellas, we were soon wet to the skin. Making sure that we were not followed, we approached the garden cautiously through the wood, the rain falling in torrents. At the edge of the forest, near a well known fountain, beyond the house, we met by appointment my man, Alphonse. He was dressed as an old woman and had an empty basket on his arm. Together we moved through the wood and shrubbery until we were opposite the side of the garden and about a hundred feet from where the wall turned at a right angle. Here, facing an avenue, the wall was broken midway by the arch of the entrance gateway. The wind blew toward us, and we could hear now and then the sound of voices. Alphonse said: "Two; there are two at the gate." "Hush," said I, as a man came around the angle and along the narrow way between us and the garden wall. "Wait, monsieur; he will come again." In some ten minutes he reappeared, as before. "Now," said Merton, and in a pour of wildly driven rain Alphonse disappeared. He found his way through the wood and in to the main avenue, which in front of the gate turned to the left and passed around the farther side of the grounds. Then he walked up to the gate. Before long we heard words of complaint. Would the guards tell her--This was all gleefully related afterward. She had lost her way. Yes, a little glass of absinthe--only one. She was not used to it. And she had the money for her market sales, and alas! so she was all wrong and must go back. The guards laughed. No doubt it was the absinthe. The old woman was reeling now and then. Wouldn't one of them show her the way? No. And was it down the avenue? Yes. With this she set off unsteadily along the road to the left. They called out that it was the wrong way, and then, laughing, dismissed her. When once around the remote angle of the wall, Alphonse slipped aside into the forest, got rid of gown and basket, and moving through the wood, took up his station on the side of the main avenue of approach to the villa, and out of sight of the guards. Here he waited until a few minutes later he was joined by the captain. Meanwhile I stood in the wood with Merton. I think he enjoyed it. I did not. A first attempt at burglary is not in all its aspects heroic, and I was wet, chilled, and anxious. "First actor on," murmured Merton. "Should like to have seen that interview. Can't be actor and audience both." I hazily reflected that for myself I was both, and that the actor had just then a sharp fit of stage-scare. I let him run on unanswered, while the rain poured down my back. At last he said: "I think Alphonse has had time enough."