“I don’t think so.” “Still—as nothing has happened.” Tom Bob called the waiter. “Bring the cigars,” he ordered. Then, turning again to the Head of the Criminal Bureau: “Well, Monsieur Havard,” he said, “if nothing has happened, I fancy that’s because the time hasn’t come yet for anything to happen, that’s all.” M. Havard growled out: “You think the ...” “I think ... ’pon my word! Monsieur Havard, I think the wisest thing to do is to wait patiently. Anyway, Fantômas strikes me as being quite a man of the world. If he really means to destroy the charming surroundings where he has brought me for this little dinner, I think he has had the politeness to wait till I have finished. It was the least he could do.” But M. Havard failed to appreciate the American detective’s irony. Interrupting him in the middle of his sentence, he sprang from his chair, and slapping his forehead: “And my men?” he cried, “I must make sure they are there.” “What men?” “The officers.” “You’ve sent police-officers here?” “Ten inspectors from the Bureau, yes!” An amused smile flitted over the detective’s lips as he looked at M. Havard whimsically. “By the Lord!” he cried, “if I was Fantômas, I should be flattered; at a telephone ring from him, you set a little army in motion, Monsieur Havard! It’s a pretty compliment, d’you know, on your part.” But M. Havard would hear no more. “It’s a compliment, or it’s not a compliment,” he struck in in a dry tone that, he hoped, would cut short the American’s irony. “Anyhow, this is the way it is; you, if by any chance you succeeded in catching one glimpse of Fantômas, they’d all be shouting _wonderful! miraculous!_ If I were to arrest him, why, they’d just say it was all in the day’s work; now, as I don’t arrest him, they throw stones at me!... Meet you again, directly, I’m off to see if my men are posted.” M. Havard took three steps to go, then thinking better of it and coming up to Tom Bob again: “Look here,” he excused himself, “I was a bit blunt with you; but you mustn’t be angry, for some while back I’ve had good cause to be irritable, you’ll admit that?” “I do,” Tom Bob agreed. “Then forgive me! Now tell me—you’ve done some smart things since your arrival in this country, I can’t deny you’re clever—tell me, have you any idea what Fantômas may try to do this evening?” Tom Bob was evidently too good-hearted and too nice a fellow not to commiserate the bad temper M. Havard suffered from, for it was in a very cordial tone this time that he answered the Chief of the Criminal Bureau: “I can form no supposition on that point—nay, I will go further, and admit there’s something that worries me ...” “What is it?”