“guard me as you would your honor, Monty; the sport begins, and I am now probably pursued by a half dozen of the super-crooks of high class fiction.”

“I wish you’d be serious,” Monty said plaintively.

“I am,” Denby assured him. “But I rely on your protection, so feel more light-hearted than I should otherwise.”

“You are laughing at me,” Monty protested.

“I want you to look a little less like a detected criminal,” Denby returned.

“If I happened to be a detective after a criminal I should arrest you on sight. You keep looking furtively about as though you’d done murder and bloodhounds were on your track.”

“Well, they are on our track,” Monty said excitedly, and then whispered thrillingly: “Have a cigarette, Dick.” There was trembling triumph in his voice. He felt he had justified himself in his friend’s eyes.

“What is it?” Denby asked with no show of excitement.

“There was a man in Cartier’s who watched us all the time,” Monty confided. “He is on our trail now. We’re being shadowed, Steve. It’s all up!”

“Nonsense!” his companion cried. “There’s nothing compromising in buying a pearl necklace. I didn’t steal it.”

Suddenly he turned around and looked at the man Monty indicated. His face cleared. “That’s Harlow. He’s one of Cartier’s clerks, who looks after American women’s wants. Don’t worry about him.”

By this time the two had come to the Tuileries, that paradise for the better class Parisian children. Denby pointed to a seat. “Sit down there,” he commanded, “while I see what Harlow wants.”

Obediently Monty took a seat and watched the man he had mistaken for a detective from the corner of his eye. Denby chatted confidentially with him for fully five minutes and then, it seemed to the watcher, passed a small packet into his hand. The man nodded a friendly adieu and walked rapidly out of sight. For a few seconds Denby stood watching and then rejoined his friend.

“Anything the matter?” the timorous one demanded eagerly.

“Why should there be?” Denby returned. “Don’t worry, Monty, there’s nothing to get nervous about yet.”

Monty remembered 

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