to "do" Paris. If any one could say what bad become of Michel Grey, he was the man; and I'd hardly got the words out of my lips when he jumped down my throat with his theory.
"Bigg," says he, "your man's in a drug-den—and what's more, he's in a private drug-den. It's a wonder his people haven't had any note for money before this—that is, if Grey hasn't a banking account of his own in Paris."
"I don't follow you there," says I. "What do you mean by a private drug-den?"
"Why, a place where they dose 'em and bleed 'em at the same time. Such shops are cheap this way. They trap a man with cash, aud make it pleasant for him so long as his money lasts, then they knock him on the head or leave him to skip the golden gutter. You couldn't have named a worse job. I doubt that you'll ever set eyes on Grey again, if you live to be a hundred."
This was a facer! I'd thought all along that the American was laid by the heels in some opium-shop, but that we should have any difficulty in getting him out was a fact that never entered my head.
"Then you don't take the thing on, Jim?" said I.
"Oh, I'm not saying that!" cried he; "but it's worth more than a hundred. I'm like to have my head cracked before I'm out of it."
"I'll make it two hundred and fifty," said I, "and not a penny more."
"You're on," says he. " And now for a word about
