Of a sudden the band struck into an air that was hailed with a howl of recognition and delight from three thousand throats.
It was “The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo.”
The musicians seemed to know they had hit something that would please that crowd, and they were not mistaken. The three thousand who had howled with joy as the first note struck into the song, marching and strutting and yelling till the mad chorus could be heard as far as the boulevards.
Frank felt that he had been repaid for visiting Paris. At last he had seen the class of Parisians that he had heard about and read about, yet had failed to discover up to this night. He realized that they appeared only at unusual intervals, but now he felt certain they lived up to their reputation when they did appear.
And Frank found himself singing with the rest. He had been seized by the delirium of revelry, and he entirely forgot himself. It seemed that the occasion had been made for his especial delight, and he threw himself into the spirit of the moment.
When the high note of the chorus was reached the three thousand men and women stood on their tiptoes, and the musicians leaped upon their chairs, holding their instruments as high above their heads as they could without losing control of the note.
When the piece was ended Frank was ready for anything. He would have plunged into the whirling vortex of humanity, but a voice in his ear arrested him. That voice hissed:
“A mort, espion!”
He whirled like a panther, and in a twinkling had caught the speaker’s wrist.
It was the masked unknown!