Franky’s new-found cousin touched the goggled cap and pulled up the starting-lever. With the customary bang and snort, the motor-bicycle leaped away. Margot had uttered a little gasp at the moment of revelation. Now she turned great eyes of dismay on Franky, and withdrew them quickly. For Franky’s eyes had become circular and poppy, his mouth tried to shape itself into a whistle, but his expression was merely vacuous. He continued to explode with "Great Snipe!" at intervals, as he and Margot made their way back to more populous avenues, chartered a fortuitously passing taxi, and were driven back via the Porte Dauphine to Spitz’s gorgeous caravanserai in the Place Vendôme, when Margot vanished into her own bower, sending her French maid to intimate to Milord that Miladi would take tea alone in that apartment, and did not intend to dine. Thus Franky, relieved from duty, presently found himself, in company with a cigar, strolling bachelor-fashion through the streets of Paris. No very clear recollection stayed with him of how he spent the afternoon. At one time he found himself with his features glued against the plate-glass window of a celebrated establishment dedicated to the culture and restoration of feminine beauty, contemplating divers gilt wigs on stands—porcelain pots of marvellous unguents, warranted to eliminate wrinkles; sachets of mystic herbs to be immersed in baths; creams guaranteed to impart to the most exhausted skin the velvety freshness of infancy. Later he strayed into a sunny, green-turfed public garden, full of white statues, sparkling fountains, and municipal seats whereon Burgundian, Dalmatian, and Alsatian wet-nurses dandled or rocked or nourished their infant charges, and bonnes or governesses presided over the gambols of older babies, who played with belled Pierrots, or toy automobiles, or inflated balls of gorgeous hues.