It was one of those charming days which make August perhaps the most delightful month to spend in Paris, although the facts are not known to tourists. Many a sly French pair, however, bored with Trouville, or the season at Aix, take advantage of the allurements of a Paris August to return surreptitiously to the boulevards. On this particular day almost all the seduction of an October day was in the air, a splendid dull warm-cool crispness, which filtered down through the faded chestnut leaves from the sunlight, and left pale splotches of purple and orange on the _trottoirs_ ... a really marvellous day, which I was spending in that most excellent occupation in Paris of gazing into shops and, passing cafes, staring into the faces of those who sat on the _terrasses_.... But this is an occupation for one alone; so, when I met Sitgreaves, we joined a _terrasse_ ourselves. We were near the Napolitain and there he and I sat down and began to talk as only we two can talk together after long separation. He explained in the beginning how I had interrupted him.... There was a _fille_, some little Polish beauty who had captivated his senses a day or so before, brought to him quite by accident in an hotel where the _patron_ furnished his clients with such pleasure as the town and his address book afforded.... I knew the _patron_ myself, a fluent, amusing sort of person, who had been a _cuirassier_ and who resembled Mayol ... a _cafe-concert_ proprietor of an hotel.... It was his boast that he had never disappointed a client and it is certain that he would promise anything. Some have said that his stock in trade was one pretty girl, who assumed costumes, ages, hair, and accents, to please whatever demand was made upon her, but this I do not believe. There must have been at least two of them. The Grand Duchess Anastasia, it was rumoured, had dined with Marcel at one time, in his little hotel, and certainly one king had been seen to go there, and one member of the English royal family, but Marcel remained simple and obliging. "When will you look up the little _Polonaise_?" I asked, as we sipped _Amer Picon_ and stared with fresh interest at each new boot and ankle that passed. Paris in August is like another place in May. "Why don't you come along?" queried Sitgreaves in reply, "and we could go at once.... Oh, I know that you are in no mood for pleasure. You see the point is that I shall have to wait. Marcel will have to send for the _fille_. It is a bore to wait in a room with red curtains and a picture of _Amour et Psyche_ on the walls.... What have you been doing?" He paid the _consommation_ and started to leave without waiting for a reply, because he knew of my complaisance. I rose with him and we walked down the boulevard.