CHAPTER XI.
Theft "La fortune ne laisse rien perdre pour les hommes heureux." I thus returned Alphonse Giraud's visit sooner than either of us anticipated, for I had to go and tell him what had happened in the Rue des Palmiers.

I delivered my news in as few words as possible, and cannot tell how he took the evil tidings, for when I had spoken I walked to the window, and there stood looking down into the street.
"Have you told me all ?" asked Giraud at length, wondering, perhaps, that I lingered.
"No." I turned and faced him, the little French dandy, in his stiff collar and patent-leather boots--no bigger than a girl's.

The politeness of our previous intercourse seemed to have fallen away from us.
"No--I have not told you all.

It seems likely that you, like myself, have been left a poor man." "Then we have one reason more for being good friends," said Giraud, in his quick French way.
He rose and looked round the room.
"All the same, I have had a famous time," he said.

"Come, let us go to my father." We found the Hotel Clericy in that state of hushed expectation which follows the dread visit in palace and hut alike.