CHAPTER XV.
THE MAN OF MANY MASKS.
From dawn a stranger had been wandering about Montmorency.

Armed with a large sun-umbrella and a Guid-Joanne, his copiously oiled black side-whiskers glistening in the sun, showing large teeth in a friendly grin to wayfarers of all degrees, one did not need to hear his strong accent of the people of Marseilles to know that he was a son of the South.

Probably having made a fortune in shipping, in oils or wines, he was utilizing his holiday by touring in the north of his country, forced to admire, but still pugnaciously asseverating that no garden equalled his city park and no main street his Cannebiere.

He seemed to have no destination in particular; he stopped here and there at random, and used a large and powerful field-glass, slung by a patent leather strap over his brawny shoulders, to study the points in the wide landscape.

Now and then he made notes in his guide-book, but with a good-humored listlessness which would have disarmed the most suspicious of military detectives.