He was treated with
extraordinary politeness everywhere by the most polite people in the
world. When he asked a question a dozen answers were ready for him--a
dozen officious friends were prepared to escort him anywhere.
But Rupert Hyde wanted no one to teach him his way about Paris. Within
an hour of his arrival, after he had hastily changed the garments he
had worn on the night journey, had sallied forth, and, entering the
long Rue Lafayette, made straight to the headquarters of the 21st
_arrondissement_. Urgent business of a public nature had brought him
to Paris, but this was a private matter which he desired to dispose of
before he attended to anything else.
The place he sought was easily found. It was a plain gateway of
yellowish-white stone, over which hung a brand-new tricolour from a
flag-staff fixed at an angle, and on either side a striped sentry-box
containing a _Garde de Paris_.
The gateway led into a courtyard, in which were half-a-dozen
loungers, clustered chiefly around the entrance to a handsome flight
of stone steps within the building.
Just within this second entrance was a functionary, half beadle, half
hall-porter, wearing a low-crowned cocked hat and a suit of bright
blue cloth plentifully adorned with buttons, to whom Hyde addressed
himself.
"The office of M.
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