"I did, senor, and I return you a thousand thanks. Ah, how these pigs of detectives have tortured me!--you would never believe it. Twice my apartments, at the back there, have been entered and ransacked from end to end; I even suffered the indignity of being personally searched by a dreadful newspaper woman who had answered my advertisement for 'Improvers Wanted.' Chloroformed in broad daylight in my own house!" "But they didn't get the letter?" "I was not born yesterday, senor." "Good!" said Indiman, heartily. "What imbeciles policemen can be!" "What, indeed! Behold, senor, I show you the ruin wrought by these swine. This way." L. Hernandez rose, waddled stiffly to the back room, and threw open the door. "There!" she exclaimed, dramatically. Evidently these were the lady's living apartments--a bed-chamber and a smaller room at the left, in which were a gas-range and some smaller culinary apparatus. It was plain that the intruders had made thorough work in their search. The carpet had been removed and the flooring partially torn up; the walls had been sounded for secret receptacles, the pictures stripped of their backing, and the chairs and bedstead pulled half to pieces. "Not a square inch of anything have they left unprobed by their accursed needles," said L. Hernandez, furiously. "It will take me a month, stiff as I am, to get things to rights." "An outrage!" said Indiman, soothingly. "Shall we have a try at crossing the 'Bridge'?" And forthwith they sat down to the great solitaire with the utmost amity. But again it did not come out; the combinations were insoluble. The next day we paid another visit to L. Hernandez. "The curl-papers do not seem to be very effective," remarked Indiman, glancing at the familiar smooth bands of hair drawn straight down from the forehead and over the ears. "Ah, these wretched bandeaux!" sighed madame; "they are intractable. I shall have to wear my curl-papers by day as well as by night. Excuse me, gentlemen, for a few minutes," and she disappeared into the back room, to shortly reappear with the rebellious bands tightly swathed in a dozen little rolls of twisted paper. "Again the impassable 'Bridge,'" she said, gayly, and the pair wrestled half a dozen times with the problem--of course, unsuccessfully. On the following day the comedy was repeated. "Madame," said Indiman, gravely, "you have again forgotten your curl-papers." "Senor, my memory is undoubtedly failing; I go to repair the omission." Re-enter madame in curl-papers, and then the "Bridge" as before; da capo for a week on end. "It seems impossible to get that accursed combination," said Indiman, and he threw down the cards. Madame L. Hernandez smiled, and there was a little silence. "Madame," said Indiman. "Senor." "You are not treating me fairly. You have allowed those stupid detectives to search your apartments, and I demand an equal privilege."