Without giving the hat a single glance, he clapped it on his head, bowed and disappeared, leaving me his card. He hadn't been gone two minutes when I discovered that the hat he had exchanged for the stovepipe was _not_ mine. It came from the same firm, but the initials proved it without doubt to belong to the young fellow I had met at the table. I said some uncomplimentary things. Where the deuce _was_ my hat? Evidently the benevolent old gentleman hadn't waked up yet. Ting-a-ling! It was the boy's bell again. "Well?" "Another man after a hat. What's goin' on?" "Send him up!" I yelled. It came over me that the Frenchman had made a second mistake. I was not disappointed this time in my visitor. It was the benevolent old gentleman. Evidently he had not located _his_ hat either, and might not for some time to come. I began to believe that I had given it to the Frenchman. He seemed terribly excited. "You are the gentleman who occupies number six?" "Yes, sir. This is my apartment. You have come in regard to a hat?" "Yes, sir. My name is Chittenden. Our hats got mixed up at Martin's this evening; my fault, as usual. I am always doing something absurd, my memory is so bad. When I discovered my mistake I was calling on the family of a client with whom I had spent most of the afternoon. I missed some valuable papers, legal documents. I believed as usual that I had forgotten to take them with me. They were nowhere to be found at the house. My client has a very mischievous son, and it seems that he stuffed the papers behind the inside band of my hat. With them there was a letter. I have had two very great scares. A great deal of trouble would ensue if the papers were lost. I just telephoned that I had located the hat." He laughed pleasantly. Good heavens! here was a howdy-do. "My dear Mr. Chittenden, there has been a great confusion," I faltered. "I had your hat, but--but you have come too late." "Too late?" he roared, or I should say, to be exact, shouted. "Yes, sir." "What have you done with it?" "Not five minutes ago I gave it to a Frenchman, who seemed to recognize it as his. It was the Frenchman, if you will remember, who sat near your table in the café." "And this hat isn't yours, then?"--helplessly. "This" was a flat-brimmed hat of the Paris boulevards, the father of all stovepipe hats, dear to the Frenchman's heart. "Candidly, now," said I with a bit of excusable impatience, "do I look like a man who would wear a hat like that?" He surveyed me miserably through his eye-glasses. "No, I can't say that you do. But what in the world am I to do?" He mopped his brow in the ecstasy of anguish. "The hat must be found. The legal papers could be replaced, but.... You see, sir, that boy put a private letter of his sister's in the band of that hat, and it must be recovered at all hazards." "I am very sorry, sir." "But what shall I do?"