Part 14 (1/2)

”Of course she's not a bit like that Wendy thing really,” said the mother

”Now that I come to look at her I can see heaps of difference,” said the daughter

”None the less,” I interjected, ”you turned a very honest -thief at that; and he insists on reparation”

”Yes, indeed,” said the mother, ”it is really too bad What reparation can we s are completely soothed, but the Clicquot 1904 which took the place of claret at dinner that evening was certainly very good

[Illustration: LAURA DANCES TO HER MOTHER'S MUSIC _See ”The Innocent's Progress”--Plate 10_]

THE SUFFERER

Having engaged a sleeping-berth I naturally hurried, coin in hand, to the conductor, as all wise travellers do (usually to their discomfiture) to see if I could be accoainst invasion

I couldn't

I then sought my compartment, to learn the worst as to my position, whether above or below the necessarily offensive person as to be ed the hard ilish for the other fellow in a wagon-lit

When I discovered that to him had fallen the dreaded upper berth I relaxed a little, and later ere full of courtesies to each other--renunciations of hatpegs, racks, and so forth, and charht, which I controlled fro ere so friendly that he deemed rievance, which he considered that every one should know about, bore upon the prevalence of spurious coins in the so-called Gay City and the tendency of Parisians to work theners As he said, a ners in Paris should be treated as guests, the English especially But it is the English who are the first victims of the possessor of francs that are out of date, five-franc pieces guiltless of their country's silver, and ten-franc pieces into whose coold has entered

He had been in Paris but an hour or so when--but letcompanion told it to me

”I don't knohat your experience in Paris has been,” he said, ”but I have been victi up, while I lay at comparative ease in ested room and disliked his under vest

”I had been in Paris but a few hours,” he continued, ”when it was necessary to pay a cabhed and returned it I handed hi found soet rid of him, I sat down outside a cafe to try and ree in which these useless coins had been inserted During a week in Paris hed and drew on his trousers His braces were red

”I showed the bad francs to a waiter,” he went on, ”and he, like the cabhed In fact, next to nudity, there is no theme so certain to provoke Parisian ht of every one to whom I showed e ”This cheerful callousness in a ht-dealing as between man and man,” he said, ”denotes to what a point of cynicisreed with hih ood and what either bad or out of currency He called other waiters to enjoy the joke It seemed that in about four hours I had acquired three bad francs, one bad two-franc piece and two bad five-franc pieces

I put thee from him, which, as I subsequently discovered, contained one obsolete five-franc piece and two discredited francs And so it went on I was a continual target for thean to wash, and the story was interrupted

When he re-ee

”It's very difficult to remember to do so,” he said, ”and, besides, I aot worse and worse, and when a bad gold piece ca; so I wrote to the Chief of the Police”

”In French?” I asked

”No, in English--the language of honesty I told hilish people whom I had met had testified to similar trouble; and I put it to him that as a matter of civic pride--_esprit de pays_--he should do his utmost to cleanse Paris of this evil I added that in my opinion the waiters were the worst offenders”