Then, discovering it was half past eleven, and he was behind time, M. Moche shook the apache hurriedly by the hand and vanished. With rapid strides the old usurer made his way down the Rue de Belleville and so to the line of the exterior boulevards, where he hailed a cab, telling the man to drive him to the _Silver Goblet_, a restaurant on the Place de la Bastille. What new scheme could the dubious advocate of the Rue Saint-Fargeau be meditating now? What was the shady enterprise he was planning, for which he needed the co-operation of two notorious apaches from Ménilmontant like the “Gasman” and “Bull’s-eye”? On arriving at his destination, M. Moche took the landlord on one side; the latter seemed an old acquaintance. “I want you to keep me for to-night,” he whispered in his ear, “the little pink room; I shall be coming to dine there about eight o’clock with some swell clients; put on a man who can hold his tongue to wait.” The restaurant keeper bowed respectfully. “You can trust to me, Monsieur Moche, you shall have what you want, and you shan’t be disturbed. Anyway, the season’s drawing to a close and we’re hardly serving any more dinners in private rooms; you may count on having the whole floor practically to yourselves.” The old fellow was entirely satisfied by what he heard, and at once took his departure, striding fast along the streets and whistling a cheerful march tune. * * * * * “Dress-coat, smoking jacket? what is monsieur going to wear this evening?” “Neither, John; lay out my lounge coat.” “You are not going out then, sir, and you have not anybody asked to dinner?” Mr. Ascott stopped in the middle of arranging his tie; and turning to his man, said sharply: “I am not dining at home, and I ask you for my lounge coat, that’s all.” John, while obeying orders, still wore a scandalized air: “Excuse my speaking like this, sir, but I cannot help telling you, sir, that for some days now you have been neglecting your personal appearance, sir. What, you are going abroad, sir, in a lounge suit and dining out in such a costume? In New York or in London, you would never think of such a breach of etiquette.” Ascott interrupted his man-servant’s flow of words with a look of weary discouragement: “I shall do just what I choose, John; and let me tell you, it’s only out of consideration for your age and the years you have been with my family I don’t reprimand you severely for the liberties you take.” The man dropped his eyes and with a chagrined air: “I beg pardon, sir, it was only the interest I take in you, sir, made me say what I did.” Ascott let the matter drop. Presently, his hands very busy adjusting a carnation in the buttonhole of his coat, he asked: “The Princess Danidoff did not ring up on the ’phone this afternoon.” “No, sir; in fact it is several days now we have had no news of the princess.”