ng more about it. She had left no address.

Ultimately the clerk who had been on duty was unearthed in the
labyrinths of the hotel's backgrounds, but he could supply very
little further except the certainty that she had paid her bill in
person, and the vague belief that she had been accompanied. This
belief was companioned by a hazy notion that some one had called on
her that evening.

Even Billy's sense of humor was unstirred by the half-cynical
sympathy of the night-clerk's gaze; Billy didn't feel a laugh
anywhere within him. He was balked. The dancer had vanished with her
story, and that story was essential to the consul. Like a fool he
must return empty-handed with this yarn of her disappearance and the
consul would be justified in declaring that he had no actual proof
to act upon. Which was precisely what the consul did, but he
offered, impressed with Billy's earnestness, "to take the matter
up," with the proper authorities.

It seemed the best that could be done. Billy urged him to prompt
action, and to himself he promised some prompt action of a totally
unofficial character. He knew now what he was going to do, or rather
he thought he did, for the day still held its unsettling surprises
for him, and as he set forth on business bent that afternoon he
found himself besieged by a skinny little boy in tattered blue
robes, who danced around him with a handful of dirty postcards.

"Be off," said Billy, in vigorous Arabic, and the little boy
answered proudly, in most excellent English, "I am a messenger, sir.
I am the boy who held the canoe that night. Buy a postcard, sir?
Only six piastres a dozen, six piastres, Views of Egypt, the Sphinx,
the Nile, the----"

Impatiently Billy cut him short.

"Never mind the bluff. No one is listening. What's your message?"

"The streets have ears, sir. Buy a postcard?... I have come from the
palace. I brought in the bread. I--_I_ got in under their nose while
the big Mohammed was turned away without sight of his uncle,"
bragged the little Imp. "I am a clever boy, I. No one else