I awoke with a sense of having been some hours asleep, and in fact the
full moon, shining gloriously, had passed the meridian. The balcony was
lighted up by it like noon, and on it stood the entomologist, entirely
dressed. The door was shut behind him. He was looking in at my window, but
he did not know the room was mine, and with eyes twice as good as he had
he could not have seen through my mosquito-bar. I wondered, but lay still
till he had started softly down the steps. Then I sprang out of bed on the
dark side, and dressed faster than a fireman.

When half-clad I went and looked out a parlor window. He was trying the
gate, which was locked. But he knew where the key always hung, behind the
post, and turned to get it. I went back and finished dressing, stole down
the inner, basement stairs and out into the deep shadows of the garden,
and presently saw my guest passing in through the Fontenettes' gate, whose
bolt he had drawn from the outside. As angry now as I had been amazed I
hurried after.

To avoid the moonlight I followed the shadows of the sidewalk-trees down
to the next corner, to cross there and come back under a like cover on the
other side. But squarely on the crossing I was met and stopped by a
belated drunkard, who had a proposition to make to me which he thought no
true gentleman, such as he was, for instance, could decline. I was alone,
he asked me to notice; and he was alone; but if he should go with me,
which he would be glad to do, why, then, you see, we should be together.
He stuck like a bur, and it was minutes before I got him well started off
in his own right direction. I slipped to the Fontenettes' gate, as near as
was best, and instantly saw, between one of its posts and a very black
myrtle-orange, Fontenette himself, standing as still as the trees. I was
not in so deep a shade as he, but I might have stepped right out into the