“Huh!...” grunted Kendall, rather astonished that anybody could be interested in dogs when the world was coming down in awful ruin as his world was coming down. Bert was offended. To him that dog was one of the sights of Paris, and, when he returned to America, it would be that animal and his little piece of cleverness that he would describe rather than anything else he had seen in Paris. The dog was worth coming to see.... Notre Dame was just a dingy pile of stones.... Yet, somewhere in him was a strain that was able to speculate on the attitude of God toward Pharisees and sinners.... They continued in silence until they reached the Place du Théâtre Français, with the Palais Royal before them and the Comédie Française, and with the magnificent breadth of the Avenue de l’Opéra angling sharply to the left. Across the open space was the University Union, and Bert suggested dropping in to see if any acquaintances were lounging about, when suddenly they were hailed from a distance, and, turning, saw Jacques, wooden leg grotesquely swinging at an angle from his body, hat swinging about his head, and cane describing enthusiastic circles. Jacques was trying to run to catch them. His method was to take two hops with his sound leg and then one lurch with the artificial one. There was a devil-may-care jauntiness about this unusual gait and a good-fellowship about his eccentric salutations that, somehow, always gained him a welcome. “Ah,” he shouted, when yet he was thirty feet away, “I have find you! I have surround you—eh? Where ’ave you been? I have not seen you for _longtemps_.... And Monsieur Kendall. It ees well. We are friends and _camarades_.... I have speak about you thees evening—you, Monsieur Kendall. Ho! you have the great good fortune, _n’est-ce pas_? I give you my felicitations. I salute you.... Ah, messieurs, eet was _magnifique, splendide_!...” “What was magnificent, Jacques? Take a breath and start in fresh,” Bert admonished. Jacques patted Ken on the back. “Oh, he ees a good boy, thees Monsieur Kendall. He deserve the good fortune, _mais_, messieurs, it ees of a grandeur. Again I make the congratulations.” “Why? Why? Why?” “Bicause,” said Jacques, becoming preternaturally solemn, “bicause monsieur ees loved.” He paused. “_Oui_, he ees loved ver’ well by beautiful yo’ng girl who ees ver’ _fidèle_. It ees one beautiful theeng. I make to weep w’en it ees tol’ to me. _Vraiment!_ The tear she stand in my eyes. _Sacré nom d’une pipe!_ but it ees the theme for a poem.” “What in thunder are you talking about? Light on a bough, little bird, light.” Bert grasped Jacques by the shoulder and pretended to hold him down to earth. “Now, little man, come clean. Tell the story and don’t bubble over.”