A quarter of an hour later the sound of a carriage is heard. Madame is ready, her coiffure suits her, she smiles at herself in the glass as she slips the glove-stretchers into the twelve-button gloves. Monsieur has made a failure of his necktie and broken off three buttons. Traces of decided ill-humor are stamped on his features. Monsieur--Come, let us go down, the carriage is waiting; it is a quarter past eleven. (Aside.) Another sleepless night. Sharp, coachman; Rue de la Pepiniere, number 224. They reach the street in question. The Rue de la Pepiniere is in a tumult. Policemen are hurriedly making way through the crowd. In the distance, confused cries and a rapidly approaching, rumbling sound are heard. Monsieur thrusts his head out of the window. Monsieur--What is it, Jean? Coachman--A fire, Monsieur; here come the firemen. Monsieur--Go on all the same to number 224. Coachman--We are there, Monsieur; the fire is at number 224. Doorkeeper of the House--(quitting a group of people and approaching the carriage)--You are, I presume, Monsieur, one of the guests of Madame de Lyr? She is terror-stricken; the fire is in her rooms. She can not receive any one. Madame--(excitedly)--It is scandalous. Monsieur--(humming)--Heart-breaking, heartbreaking! (To the coachman.) Home again, quickly; I am all but asleep. (He stretches himself out and turns up his collar.) ( Aside.) After all, I am the better for a well- cooked partridge. CHAPTER XVI A FALSE ALARM Every time I visit Paris, which, unhappily, is too often, it rains in torrents. It makes no difference whether I change the time of starting from that which I had fixed upon at first, stop on the way, travel at night, resort, in short, to a thousand devices to deceive the barometer- at ten leagues from Paris the clouds begin to pile up and I get out of the train amidst a general deluge. On the occasion of my last visit I found myself as usual in the street, followed by a street porter carrying my luggage and addressing despairing signals to all the cabs trotting quickly past amid the driving rain. After ten minutes of futile efforts a driver, more sensible than the others, and hidden in his triple cape, checks his horses. With a single bound I am beside the cab, and opening, the door with a kind of frenzy, jump in. Unfortunately, while I am accomplishing all this on one side, a gentleman, similarly circumstanced, opens the other door and also jumps in. It is easy to understand that there ensues a collision. "Devil take you!" said my rival, apparently inclined to push still farther forward.