The clocks had chimed ten, and the street was quiet. The old woman, who with difficulty had been reading the feuilleton in the _Petit Nicois_ yawned, flung down her paper, and glanced over at the cosmopolitan adventurer who, with his head thrown back, was staring at the ceiling, humming in a not unmusical voice the catchy refrain of Varney's popular "Serenade du Pave--" "Sois bonne, O ma chere inconnue, Pour qui j'ai si souvent chante! Ton offrande est la bienvenue, Fais-moi la charite! Sois bonne, O ma chere inconnue, Pour qui j'ai souvent chante! Devant moi, devant moi Sois la bienvenue?" So light-hearted he seemed that possibly he had succeeded in inventing some other system whereby the pockets of the long-suffering public might be touched. Suddenly a footstep on the landing outside caused them both to start and exchange quick glances. Then the bell rang, and the conqueror of the hazard rose and opened the door. Their visitor was Zertho. He was in evening clothes, having left the theatre early to stroll round there. "Well, Mother Valentin," he exclaimed in French, tossing his hat carelessly upon the table, and sinking into a chair. "Rheumatism still bad--eh?" "Ah, yes, m'sieur," croaked the old woman in the Provencal patois, "still very bad," and grunting, she rose, and hobbled out of the room. "And how's business?" Zertho inquired of the other. "Pretty fair. Lots of mugs in the town just now," he smiled, speaking in Cockney English. "That handbill of yours is about the cheekiest bit of literature I've ever come across," he said, nodding towards one of the remarkable documents tacked upon the wall. "It has drawn 'em like honey draws flies," said the other, smiling and regarding it with pride. "The offer to pay the losses does it. You can always make a lie truth by lying large enough." He had resumed his seat, and was puffing contentedly at his cigar. "It's a really marvellous specimen of bluff," Zertho observed, in a tone of admiration. "When I first saw it I feared that you had been a bit too extravagant in your promises." "The bigger your promise the greater your success. I've always found it the same with all the wheezes I've worked," he replied. "I saw you driving with Brooker's daughter a few days ago. You seem to be having an uncommonly good time of it," he added. "Can't complain," Zertho said, leaning back with a self-complacent air. "Patrician life suits me after being so many years an outsider." "No doubt it is pleasant," his companion answered with a meaning look, "if one can completely bury the past." "I have buried it," Zertho answered quickly. Max Richards, the inventor of "The Agony of Monte Carlo," regarded the man before him with a supercilious smile. "And you pay me to prevent its exhumation--eh?" "I thought we had agreed not to mention the matter again," Zertho exclaimed, darting at his crafty-looking fellow-adventurer a look of annoyance and suspicion.