"’What! what!’ exclaimed the Duke, rising. As to the thief, he knelt down at my mother’s feet and said, looking in her face: ’Madame, God has sent you this thief to show you a way out of this grave.’ My mother caught his arm and cried, ’Let this jesting cease.’ He answered, ’I do not jest,’ and we all leaped up and came to where he knelt. "’What is this?’ said the Duke; on which our thief turned to the end of the vault and quite easily spun aside two of the casks. "’Look!’ he said. To our surprise, there were several boards set against the wall, and between their joinings came a current of air which flared a candle-flame. ’There is a space beyond,’ said the Duke. ’Is it the catacombs? And was this vault a part? See the masonry here, and over it these boards nailed fast into the cracks.’ ’Horrible!’ cried my poor mother. I had heard that all of the contents of the Cemetery of the Innocents had been tumbled into some of the openings of these catacombs. ’_Mon Dieu_,’ I cried; ’they are full of the dead!’ "’It is the live rascals I care not to meet,’ laughed the thief; ’as for the dead, they are dead. All their wants are supplied. They neither steal nor kill—and there are ways out—ways out—I am sure.’ "’Pray God, my good thief, that it may be as you say,’ said my mother; ’but _mon Dieu!_ one may wander far, they say, in these old quarries.’ ’Let us see,’ said the thief, and with a strong hand he tore away board after board, the rusted nails breaking and the rotten wood falling at his feet. There, before him and us, was a great, dark gap in the wall. Our thief held his lantern within it. "’I see little; there is a descent. I must go and find out.’ "’Oh, be careful! You may fall—may die,’ said my mother. "’You have said that, Madame, which would send me smiling on a worse errand. Since I was of this lad’s bigness, no one has so much as cared if I lived or died. I was a mere dog of the streets whom all men kicked.’ "’Poor fellow,’ said my mother. ’We are alike of the company of misfortune, and perhaps from this day you may forever turn from evil.’ "’Let us waste no more time,’ said the Duke; ’but have a care, or we shall lose you.’ "’If he had a long string which he might unroll,’ said I. ’I saw that in a book.’ "’Good,’ said the Duke, ’if we had it; but we have not.’ "’But we have,’ said the thief. ’Here is Madame’s knitting-ball. The lad shall hold the end, and I shall be the fish at the other end, and unroll it as I go.’ "Upon this, I, very proud, was given the end to hold, and our thief took his lantern and went on, we watching him until the light was lost because of his turning a corner. He might have been gone half an hour when he came back. My mother said to him: ’We feared for you. And now, what is your name? For if out of jest we have called you Mr. Thief, that is not to be done any more.’