"My dear Roddy,--The hunt is up. I took some time getting a move
on it: but to-night Farrell has the real spirit of the chase
upon him, and is in his room at this moment, packing
surreptitiously with intent to give me the slip.
"You will have gathered from a glance at the above address
that Farrell is with me; or rather, that I am with Farrell.
I give him full scope with his tastes. It is part of the Plan.
But to-night--knowing that he had gone to his room to pack
surreptitiously, and that his berth in the _Wagon-lit_ is booked
for to-morrow night at the Gare d'Orleans--I gave myself what
the housemaids call an evening-out. This is Paris, Roddy, in
the time of the chestnut bloom. A full moon has been performing
above the chestnuts. Beneath their boughs the municipality had
hung a thousand reflections of it in the form of Chinese
lanterns shaped and coloured like great oranges. The band at
the _Ambassadeurs_--a band of artists and, as I should judge,
conducted by somebody who couldn't forget that he had once been
a gentleman--saw the moon rise and at once were stricken with
Midsummer madness.
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