“‘Yes; did you?’ Rangon popped in with a twinkle.

“I went through all my pockets again.  No cigarette case....

“Of course, it was possible that I’d left it behind, and I was annoyed again.  I didn’t want to go back, you see....  But, on the other hand, I didn’t want to lose the case—­it was a present—­and Rangon’s smile nettled me a good deal, too.  It was both a challenge to our truthfulness and a testimonial to that very good wine of his....

“‘Might have done,’ I grunted....  ’Well, in that case we’ll go and get it.’

“‘If one tried the restaurant first—?’ Rangon suggested, smiling again.

“‘By all means,’ said I stuffily, though I remembered having the case after we’d left the restaurant.

“We were round at the restaurant by half-past nine.  The case wasn’t there.  I’d known jolly well beforehand it wasn’t, and I saw Rangon’s mouth twitching with amusement.

“‘So we now seek the abode of these English ladies, hein?’ he said.

“‘Yes,’ said I; and we left the restaurant and strode through the village by the way we’d taken the evening before....

“That vigneron’s smile became more and more irritating to me....  ’It is then the next village?’ he said presently, as we left the last house and came out into the open plain.

“We went back....

“I was irritated because we were two to one, you see, and Carroll backed me up.  ‘A double door, with a grille in front of it,’ he repeated for the fiftieth time....  Rangon merely replied that it wasn’t our good faith he doubted.  He didn’t actually use the word ’drunk.’...

“‘Mais tiens,’ he said suddenly, trying to conceal his mirth. ’Si c’est possible... si c’est possible... a double door with a grille?  But perhaps that I know it, the domicile of these so elusive ladies....  Come this way.’

“He took us back along a plantain-groved street, and suddenly turned up an alley that was little more than two gutters and a crack of sky overhead between two broken-tiled roofs.  It was a dilapidated, deserted ruelle, and I was positively angry when Rangon pointed to a blistered old porte-cochere with a half-unhinged railing in front of it.

“‘Is it that, your house?’ he asked.

“‘No,’ says I, and ‘No,’ says Carroll ... and off we started again....

“But another half-hour brought us back to the same place, and Carroll scratched his head.

“‘Who lives there, anyway?’ he said, glowering at the porte-cochere, chin forward, hands in pockets.

“‘Nobody,’ says Rangon, as much as to say ‘look at it!’ ’M’sieu then meditates taking it?’...

“Then I struck in, quite out of temper by this time.

“‘How much would the rent be?’ I asked, as if I really thought of taking the place just to get back at him.

“He mentioned something ridiculously small in the way of francs.