The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-08-27
}A WOMAN'S { ENCHANTMENT { ( By William Le Queux z ! Copyright, 1909, by ( William Le Queux
 -v

 (continued3
 Most men are better off without friends.'' I declared.
 You're quite right. PhiI.'' he said "I wish I could struggle on without l them; but. somehow. I pick up so many"
 Because of your power to attract them. The man who has no friends usually grows rich.''
 You mean miserly skunks-eh? l know the type'' "Yes. the really rich man has few friends. He's clever enough not to make any,"
 "Yes But that requires more tact than I possess. My forte is cheek. believe. I pride myself that if occas- ion require it I can tell lie perfectly. Indeed. in my profession I've brought lying to a fine art"
 'Tn that I quite believe you. my dear Granny.' I laughed You're a better liar even than an Old Bailey lawyer
 When necessity dictates" 1 Granville Cough was surely a man of complex nature. A light hearted, careless devil-may-care adventurer. without fixed habitation. but with hosts of friends. he lived in all the capitals of Europe by turn. a few days | here. a few days there. until he was just as much at home in the Puerta del Sol. in Madrid. as in thei Corso. in Rome the Nevslzi. in Petersburg. or our own familiar Strand. His friends. | too were of every station from princes and ministers of state. whom he would invite to dinner. down to those rogged l night birds. the scum of a continental ,l city, who knew him to be crook. and were ever ready to furnish him l with information or render him ser l vice.
 | I, perhaps, was the only man who knew Granny Cough intimately. Many a man and many a woman who reads these lines will have met in London | and on the Continent-under differ ent name, of course-a1ways exquisite fly dressed. always affa5iie. and always
 affIuent. for never once within my ex-
 perience has he ever allowed the world to believe him anything but prosper ous. It was one of the tenets of hi. religion Put on a bold front ane \ order good dinner. even though you lhave to pawn your portmanteau after
 ward" he used to say
 When Granny Cough put his wits i together there was not a cleverer mar
 on the whole face of Europe. I have
 known him to get the best of the mos
 expert diplomat. and to convince :
 minister of state against his will
 When he intended to carry his poin
 he would fix his opponent with his big clear blue eyes with a look of in
 tensity which seemed somehow tt
 hypnotize and fascinate. How it wa . cannot tell. In this chronicle Q
 strange events I am simply settint
 down what actually occurred. I an not seeking the reason of my friendi
 marvellous and amazing power ovel
 his fellow-men: but I am relating. { curiously romantic and extraordinar, chain of facts of which myself hav . been witness in this past year or st
 of my own cosmopolitan life.
 myself have been a constant an,
 homeless wanderer on the continent like Cough. but in different sphere
 Circumstances. curious in themselves
 had drawn us closely together. ant
 now. at the period of which I am writ Il ing. I found that our lives had be
 come. almost before I was aware O
 it. closely associated.
 He was my friend. Men might cal { him an adyenturer. Those whom h : had befriended-and they were man. 't-might hold up their hands in piou
 horror that they had ever associates
 with an outsider. For that I care
 nothing.
 I knew the trua heart of the big j handed, big-faced. clean-shaven ma ! clx.r,, reminded me of an overgrown boy That heart which had sympath ze with the starving woman and he
 child: that heart that loved little Myr
 Stapleton- so dearly. which delighted il
 Nietzsche's philosophy. and was nov
 broken because of the dastardl treachery of a man whom he hal foolishly treated as his friend.
 Again I looked at him. as he smoke \ on in thoughtful silence.