Hang these old duffers who are so absent-minded! For I was confident that the benevolent old gentleman was the cause of all this confusion. Inside the cab I tried on the thing, just to get a picture in my mind of the old gentleman going it up Broadway with my opera-hat on his head. The hat sagged over my ears; and I laughed. The picture I had conjured up was too much for my anger, which vanished suddenly. And once I had laughed I felt a trifle more agreeable toward the world. So long as a man can see the funny side of things he has no active desire to leave life behind; and laughter does more to lighten his sorrows than sympathy, which only aggravates them. After all, the old gentleman would feel the change more sharply than I. This was, in all probability, the only hat he had. I turned it over and scrutinized it. It was a genteel old beaver, with an air of respectability that was quite convincing. There was nothing smug about it, either. It suggested amiability in the man who had recently possessed it. It suggested also a mild contempt for public opinion, which is always a sign of superior mentality and advanced years. I began to draw a mental portrait of the old man. He was a family lawyer, doubtless, who lived in the past and hugged his retrospections. When we are young there is never any vanishing point to our day-dreams. Well, well! On the morrow he would have a new hat, of approved shape and pattern; unless, indeed, he possessed others like this which had fallen into my keeping. Perhaps he would soon discover his mistake, return to the café and untangle the snarl. I sincerely hoped he would. As I remarked, my hat had cost me eight dollars. I soon arrived at my apartments, and got into a smoking-jacket. I rather delight in lolling around in a dress-shirt; it looks so like the pictures we see in the fashionable novels. I picked up Blackstone and turned to his "promissory notes." I had two or three out myself. It was nine o'clock when the hall-boy's bell rang, and I placed my ear to the tube. A gentleman wished to see me in regard to a lost hat. "Send him up, James; send him up!" I bawled down the tube. Visions of the club returned, and I tossed Blackstone into a corner. Presently there came a tap on the door, and I flung it wide. But my visitor was not the benevolent old gentleman. He was the Frenchman whose absinthe had offended me. He glanced at the slip of paper in his hand. "I have zee honaire to address zee--ah--gentleman in numbaire six?" "I live here." "Delight'! We have meexed zee hats, I have zee r-r-regret. Ees thees your hat?" He held out, for my inspection, an opera-hat. "I am _so_ absent-mind'--what you call deestrait?"--affably. I took the hat, which at first glance I thought to be mine, and went over to the rack, taking down the old stovepipe. "This is yours, then?" I said, smiling. "Thousand thanks, m'sieu! Eet ees certain mine. I have zee honaire to beg pardon for zee confusion. My compliments! Good night!"