All-Story Weekly, March 1, 1919 — page 129: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

DESIRE for some of Mme. Poiron’s incomparable cételettes au vin blanc ‘Adrew me to her little restaurant on the Boul’ Mich., and there I encoun- tered my friend Lapierre, of the Paris police. He had finished lunching, and, café gloria at his right hand, a thin black cigar between his lips, was reading a paper novel propped against the sugar bowl. He insisted that I share his table;~and offered to scribble a line on a bit of paper, and bet me a louis that I would order what he had written. “Just to prove that I possess psychic powers,” he teased. I refused smilingly. “ You know very well that only two things bring me to Mme. Poiron’s,” said I—“ her cételettes and the chance of meeting you.” “Tn that order?”’ “ Certainly—for I am sure of the former _—-while you are an uncertain quantity. A cotelette in the mouth is worth—” “ Granted,” he interrupted, and, Alfred approaching, I gave my order and waited for Lapierre to explain his latest case— which, by the by, he rarely did. “T am reading a detective story by one of your clever American writers,” he re- marked, laying aside the paper book. “They take my mind off my profession, they are so improbable.” ‘You don’t care for the sleuth in Paine then?” John D. Swain “On the contrary, he gives me great pleasure,” said Lapierre. ‘‘ He could be sure of a salaried position in the service de - la stireté at any time. The trouble with him is, he doesn’t exist. He is invariably superman —a prodigy of genius such as may appear once or twice in a generation, but never in my profession. ‘There we are simple, hard-working specialists, ungifted by God with the miraculous prescience of our friends of the contes et nouvelles.” - ‘Oh, come!” I expostulated, largely to draw him out. ‘“ You are too modest.” Lapierre smiled and took a swallow of his black coffee. “You have heard, mon ami, that twice I have had my pockets picked?” I nodded. ‘And they will doubtless be rifled again. I am called absentminded, It really isn’t quite that—it is rather a matter of con- centration. I am like a horse in that I can think of only one thing at a time. Tickle his ear, and he can usually be started along —because as soon as he thinks about the tickling he forgets to balk. Now, if I were engaged in a game of chess, I dare say one might remove every rag of clothes from me, and leave me sitting before my scandalized —_ = opponent as bare as the day I was born. But were I to make a wrong move on the board it would not be from absentminded- ° ness. I have the faculty of Pelee all facts not needed at the time. It is