One day, some two months or so after they had struck up their friendship, Jacques, coming back from the drill ground with the other, put the question point-blank. "Look here," said he, "I'm not the man to poke his nose into another man's business, but I want to know something, all the same. What do you do with yourself of an evening? Why don't you come to the Place to hear the band, or go to one of the cafés, like the rest of us? You make off and vanish--well, what do you do with yourself?" Karasloff smiled. "I do not go to hear the band," said he, "maybe because music stirs up memories, and as to the cafés, I have never been a frequenter of cafés. What do I do with myself? Well, I will not tell you; but if you come with me this evening I will show you." "I'll come," said Jacques. He was vastly interested in this business, there was something mysterious in the evasive reply and the manner of Karasloff. What was this mysterious occupation or amusement that held his friend every evening from six till ten? He remembered one légionnaire who used to disappear from barracks like this, and who, it turned out afterwards, was assisting in the management of a café; could Karasloff be so employed? Jacques' fertile brain busied itself all that day turning over suggestions and ideas on the subject without finding anything plausible, and at six o'clock, still in the dark, he started off with his secretive companion for Sidi-bel-Abbès. "I have been trying to guess what you will show me," said he, "and what business it is that you are engaged in." "I will give you three guesses," said Karasloff, laughing, "and five francs if you hit the mark." "Good," said Jacques. "Well, then, you are running a café." "No." "A gambling shop." "No." "Ah, I have it--an opium den." "No." "Deuce. I give in--maybe you have turned Mussulman and spend your time at the mosque." "No. I am still a good Christian--I hope." "Well, it is beyond me and it seems that I am not to win that five francs--well, we will see." "Yes," said Karasloff, laughing, "we will see." They reached the gates and passed through to the great boulevard cutting the town north and south. Leading the way, Karasloff turned from the boulevard down a street narrow and roofed with the blue evening sky, less a street than a bazaar, where the stalls exposed all sorts of merchandise for sale, pottery, oriental stuffs, carpets, pipe-stems and oriental tobacco, Arab gums faked and made in Paris, Rahat Lakhoum, scent. Before one of these shops that exposed oriental stuffs and carpets for sale Karasloff paused, then, glancing up and down the street to make sure that there were no other légionnaires about, he entered, followed by Jacques.