money. Nicolette and Mémé, madame's nieces, in charming bib aprons,
bring the desirable beverages.

Dumars, with true Creole luxury, was sipping his absinthe, with
half-closed eyes, in a swirl of cigarette smoke. Robbins was looking
over the morning _Pic._, detecting, as young reporters will, the
gross blunders in the make-up, and the envious blue-pencilling his
own stuff had received. This item, in the advertising columns,
caught his eye, and with an exclamation of sudden interest he read
it aloud to his friend.


Public Auction.--At three o'clock this afternoon there will
be sold to the highest bidder all the common property of the
Little Sisters of Samaria, at the home of the Sisterhood,
in Bonhomme Street. The sale will dispose of the building,
ground, and the complete furnishings of the house and chapel,
without reserve.


This notice stirred the two friends to a reminiscent talk concerning
an episode in their journalistic career that had occurred about
two years before. They recalled the incidents, went over the old
theories, and discussed it anew from the different perspective time
had brought.

There were no other customers in the café. Madame's fine ear had
caught the line of their talk, and she came over to their table--for
had it not been her lost money--her vanished twenty thousand
dollars--that had set the whole matter going?