A wonderful spectacle was M. Lépine a few nights later, when “directing operations” at a disastrous fire on the Boulevard Sebastopol. In the sight of the crowd he struggled into oilskins, and next was to be seen stationing the engines, dragging about hose, pushing forward ladders, signalling and shouting forth encouragement and patience to the occupants of the blazing house. On this, as on all similar occasions, M. Lépine was blackened and singed when at last the fire had been mastered. But never have I beheld him so blackened, so dishevelled and battered, so courageous and capable as when he came to the rescue of the “victims” of the devastating Paris floods. Up and down the swollen, lurid river he careered in a shabby old boat. At once-pleasant river-side places, such as Boulogne and Surèsnes, he was to be found chest-deep in the turbid, yellow-green water—always signalling, always “firmly” and “actively” “directing operations.” He climbed into the upper windows of tottering, flooded houses; briskly made his way across narrow plank bridges; distributed here, there and everywhere blankets, medicaments, provisions—the mud and slime of the river caked hard on his oilskins. As he passed by in his boat, the most bedraggled figure in Paris, loud cries of “Vive Lépine” from the bridges and quays; and, indeed, wherever he went, M. le Préfet de Police excited respect and admiration. I see him, in top hat and frock coat, “receiving” the late King Edward VII. in the draughty Northern Station. I see him pointing out the beauties of Paris to the present Prince of Wales. I see him surrounded by the turbulent students of the Latin Quarter, whither he has been summoned to check their demonstrations against some unpopular professor. I see him examining (in the interests of the public) the clocks of motor cabs, the cushions of railway carriages, the seating conditions in theatres, the very benches and penny chairs in the Bois de Boulogne. Finally, I see him as he is to-day; no longer Chief of the Police, but a private “citizen,” established in a spacious, comfortable _appartement_, which, to the admiration and excitement of naïve, bourgeois Parisians, is equipped with no fewer than two bathrooms. “With two bathrooms our admirable Lépine will have plenty to do,” states M. le Bourgeois. “They are a responsibility, as well as a pleasure; but, of course, they will not prove too much for a man like Lépine.” Then up speaks a primitive soul: “One is free to bathe and free not to bathe. But to have two bathrooms is scandalous: and I should not have thought it of Lépine.” However, in the opinion of a third critic, M. Lépine should be permitted to have ninety-nine bathrooms if he likes. Twenty-two years Chief of the Police, he is now entitled to do as he pleases. So leave his two bathrooms alone. “When a man has retired, he must have distractions with which to occupy his mind and his leisure.”