Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/199

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watches, he perhaps going on duty at night. I did a good deal of night work myself, dining at the same little restaurant and sitting behind the screen of dwarf orange-trees in tubs, usually to see Léontine and Kharkoff roll away at about half-past seven in the big six-cylinder car that I myself had sold to the Prince. They dined out and went to the play or the opera almost every night, although it was now midsummer, and most of the chic people were at the springs or beaches.

It was tiresome work watching there for a sign of Chu-Chu, but the two proverbs or maxims of which I have always most admired the truth are "It's dogged as does it," and " Everything comes to him who waits." Personally I believe that there is some sort of compelling, cohesive force given off from the person or animal that sits down and quietly waits and wishes for his prey. That force goes out in time to draw the desired object, especially when the wishing is done conscientiously and without any let-up. So I sat there and waited and watched and read "Pickwick Papers" and "Oliver Twist" and "Dombey and Son," and picked up the dictionary when I happened to think of it. Most of the cab drivers said a word to me when they came in, and I had the general reputation of being an inoffensive and deeply erudite young preacher.

Then one hot day, when the little "terrace"—as they call the strip of sidewalk enclosed by dwarf oranges—was crowded, and even the inner room was well filled, a freshly-painted, saucy little auto-taxi drew up to the curb, and down from the driver's seat stepped a very pretty, smartly-costumed chauf-