In the Rue Castiglione he stopped. What should he do? It was too early to go home, too late for the club; the world he knew had gone to bed, the world he dimly knew of was waking up. A world in its shirt-sleeves, clean, bright, busy, and apparently happy. The dinner, the supper, the Marquis de Nani, Pelisson’s roaring voice, Struve’s lisp, and Gaillard’s melancholic poetry, all pursued him like Eumenides of a low sort, impotent, yet able to tease. On the Pont de Solferino he stood to look at the river, and might have thrown himself in had not the water looked so cold, and had he not remembered that he was unable to swim. Then, turning back, he came along the arcade of the Rue de Rivoli, walking leisurely and listening to the birds singing in the trees of the gardens of the Tuileries. The Place de la Concorde seemed horribly immense, and the far-away Eiffel Tower looked like a filmy giant straddling his legs, his hands in his pockets, and wearily waiting for something to do. Crossing the Place de la Concorde came a solitary girl carrying something in her hand; following the girl came a man. CHAPTER IV. THE POETRY OF HATS. Toto saw that the man was begging from the girl, and the girl was walking quickly. The man was a horrible-looking scoundrel. “And here,” said Toto, “is something to do.” He advanced rapidly and obliquely upon the pursued and pursuer, who, when he saw that the game was up, called out a vile word and turned to run. But he had reckoned without Toto. It was all over in a minute, and from a distance it looked like a sparrow-fight, Toto in his brown tweeds, and the Barrier bully in his antique, rusty, long-tailed coat. The next our bully was running for his life towards the Pont de la Concorde, bawling and holding his nose, and the Prince, with his hat on the back of his head, was talking to the girl. “Look!” cried Toto, screaming with laughter. “Three gendarmes are after him.” “Oh, monsieur!” murmured the girl,—she had blue eyes and the air of a fluttered dove,—“how can I thank you for having saved me?” “Let us hurry away,” said the Prince. “I see a gendarme shading his eyes at us over there. Let’s dodge away down the arcade. Look! he’s coming towards us. Run!” They ran down the arcade hand in hand, to the wonder of the boys who were taking down the shop shutters. There was no earthly occasion for this flight. But Toto always embroidered upon a position; he could not behold a cat-fight without mentally suggesting betterments; besides, it was _outré_. “Now we are safe,” said he, as they turned up a by-street. “Oh, what fun! Tell me, mademoiselle, may I not carry your little parcel? No? May I not accompany you, then, to your journey’s end?”