With a slight nod, the visitor entered the huge building on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, which houses the offices of Public Works. He was a young man, dressed in a long black overcoat, a derby hat, which he wore well down over his eyes, and a wide bandage that covered one eye and part of the cheek. After climbing the four flights indicated, he discovered that he had evidently taken the wrong staircase. There was nothing to do then but to go back to the porter's lodge and get more explicit instructions. But after taking a few steps, he hesitated. "Fandor, old chap," he soliloquized, "what's the use of showing yourself and taking the risk of being recognized as the erstwhile King of Hesse-Weimar?" For the individual who was in search of the Bureau of Public Works was no other than the journalist. An hour previously he had succeeded by clever strategy in getting rid of the excellent Wulf, who was at all times very loath to let the King out of his sight. Then, rushing to his own apartment, he had changed his clothes and partly covered his face with the bandage to conceal his features. After several futile attempts, aided by innumerable directions from passing employes, he at length reached the office of which he was in search. There he encountered a clerk who viewed him with a suspicious eye. "What do you want, Monsieur?" "I want some information." "We don't give information here." "Really!... Why not?" "Are you a contractor?" "No." "You wish to lodge a complaint?" "No." "Then what is your business?" "Just to get some information as to the probable duration of certain works." "You are not a reporter?" "I am not a reporter. I am an advertising agent." "Ah, that's different. The office you are looking for is number 43, the door opposite ... but there's nobody in now. However, you can wait." Fandor crossed and entered room 43, where, after a moment, he discovered an occupant tucked away behind an enormous pile of books and manuscripts. This clerk was absorbed in a yellow-covered novel and greeted Fandor with evident ill-humor. "What d'you want?" "I would like to know, Monsieur, the probable duration of the repair work in operation at the Place de la Concorde." "And why do you want to know that?" "I am an advertising agent, and I may have a proposition to offer to the city." "And at what point is this work in operation?" "At the corner of the wall of the Orangery and the Quay." After consulting a large register, the clerk turned to Fandor, shutting the book with a bang. "Nothing is being done there. You are mistaken." "But I've just come from there. There is a ditch and a palisade." "No, no, no such thing. In every quarter of Paris the police are obliged to notify me of any public works in operation, and an entry is made in my register to that effect. Now, I have no record of the repairs you speak of, consequently they don't exist."