One of the Little Girls in Pigtails Was Holding Him, While Miss Anne Administered the Feeding-Bottle 134 He Must Have Dealt Out Paralyzing Information 180 Fleurette Danced with Aristide, as Light as an Autumn Leaf Tossed by the Wind 188 Aristide Practised His Many Queer Accomplishments 200 He Read It, and Blinked in Amazement 208 He Might as Well Have Pointed Out the Marvels of Kubla Khan's Pleasure-Dome to a Couple of Guinea-Pigs 216 "I've Caught You! At Last, After Twenty Years, I've Caught You" 234 There He Saw a Sight Which for a Moment Paralyzed Him 238 Mr. Ducksmith Seized Him by the Lapels of His Coat 242 * * * * * THE JOYOUS ADVENTURES OF ARISTIDE PUJOL * * * * * #The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol# I THE ADVENTURE OF THE FAIR PATRONNE In narrating these few episodes in the undulatory, not to say switchback, career of my friend Aristide Pujol, I can pretend to no chronological sequence. Some occurred before he (almost literally) crossed my path for the first time, some afterwards. They have been related to me haphazard at odd times, together with a hundred other incidents, just as a chance tag of association recalled them to his swift and picturesque memory. He would, indeed, make a show of fixing dates by reference to his temporary profession; but so Protean seem to have been his changes of fortune in their number and rapidity that I could never keep count of them or their order. Nor does it matter. The man's life was as disconnected as a pack of cards. My first meeting with him happened in this wise. I had been motoring in a listless, solitary fashion about Languedoc. A friend who had stolen a few days from anxious business in order to accompany me from Boulogne through Touraine and Guienne had left me at Toulouse; another friend whom I had arranged to pick up at Avignon on his way from Monte Carlo was unexpectedly delayed. I was therefore condemned to a period of solitude somewhat irksome to a man of a gregarious temperament. At first, for company's sake, I sat in front by my chauffeur, McKeogh. But McKeogh, an atheistical Scotch mechanic with his soul in his cylinders, being as communicative as his own differential, I soon relapsed into the equal loneliness and greater comfort of the back. In this fashion I left Montpellier one morning on my leisurely eastward journey, deciding to break off from the main road, striking due south, and visit Aigues-Mortes on the way.