We parted excellent friends.  The more I saw of l’Echelle the more I liked him.  It was a pleasure to work with a man of such acute perceptions, and I told him so.

Nothing fresh occurred that night or the next day.  I was never very far off my Colonel, and watched him continually but unobtrusively.  I hope I know my business well enough for that.

I was rather struck by a change in his demeanour.  It was very subtle, and everyone might have noticed it.  He wore an air of preoccupation that spoke to me of an uneasy mind.  He was unhappy about something; some doubt, some secret dread oppressed him, and more than once I thought he wished to keep out of sight and avoid my searching interrogative eyes.

“You’re right,” said l’Echelle.  “He’s down on his luck, and he don’t want you to see it.  He’s dying for news that don’t seem in a hurry to come.  Half a dozen times to-day he’s asked me to inquire if there’s a telegram for him, and he haunts the hall porter’s box continually in the hope of getting one.  Have you heard any more from Tiler?”

“Yes, another mad telegram, this time from Marseilles.  Fancy that!  It will be Constantinople next or Grand Cairo or Timbuctoo.  The folly of it!”

“What does my lord say?”

“Plenty, and it’s not pleasant to bear.  He’s getting fairly wild, and cart ropes won’t hold him.  He wants to go racing after Tiler now, and if he does he’ll give away the whole show.  I hope to heaven your boss will show his hand soon.”

“It’s not for me to make him, you must admit that.  But cheer up, copain, things may mend.”

They did, as often happens when they seem to be at their worst.

I have always been an early riser, and was specially so at Aix, now when the heat was intense, and the pleasantest hours of the day were before the sun had risen high.  I was putting the finishing touches to my toilette about 7 A.M. when I heard a knock at my door, and without waiting permission l’Echelle rushed in.

“Already dressed?  What luck!  There is not a moment to lose.  Come along.  I’ve a fiacre at the door below.”

He gave the etablissement as the address, and we were soon tearing down the hill.  As we drove along l’Echelle told me the news.

“It’s come, that satanic telegram, and just what he wanted, I’m prepared to swear.  He simply jumped for joy when he read it.”

“But what was the message?  Go on, go on, out with it!” I shouted almost mad with excitement.

“I can’t tell you that, for I haven’t seen it yet.”

“Are you making a fool of me?”

“How could I see it?  He put it straight into his pocket.  But I mean to see it pretty soon, and so shall you.”

“You mean to abstract it somehow—­pick his pocket, or what?”

“Simplest thing in the world.  You see he’s gone to have his bath, he likes to be early, and he’s undergoing the douche at this very moment, which means naturally that he’s taken off his clothes, and they are waiting in the dressing-room for me to take home.  I shall have a good quarter of an hour and more to spare before they carry him back to the hotel in his blankets and get him to bed.”