By four o'clock in the morning he found himself in the Avenue de l'Observatoire. On seeing the houses of the Boulevard Saint-Michel he experienced a painful impression and abruptly turned back toward the Observatory. The dog had vanished. Near the monument of the Lion of Belfort, Chevalier stopped in front of a deep trench which cut the road in two. Against the bank of excavated earth, under a tarpaulin supported by four stakes, an old man was keeping vigil before a brazier. The lappets of his rabbit-skin cap were down over his ears; his huge nose was a flaming red. He raised his head; his eyes, which were watering, seemed wholly white, without pupils, each set in a ring of fire and tears. He was stuffing into the bowl of his cutty a few scraps of canteen tobacco, mixed with bread-crumbs, which did not fill half the bowl of his little pipe. "Will you have some tobacco, old fellow?" asked Chevalier, offering him his pouch. The man's answer was slow in coming. His understanding was not quick, and courtesies astonished him. Finally, he opened a mouth which was quite black, and said: "I won't say no to that." He half rose from his seat. One of his feet was shod in an old slipper; the other was swathed in rags. Slowly, with hands numb with the cold, he stuffed his pipe. It was snowing, a snow that melted as it fell. "You will excuse me?" said Chevalier, and he slipped under the tarpaulin and seated himself beside the old man. From time to time they exchanged a remark. "Rotten weather!" "It's what we expect at this season. Winter's hard; summer's better." "So you look after the job at night, old fellow?" The old man answered readily when questioned. Before he spoke his throat emitted a long, very gentle murmur. "I do one thing one day; another thing another. Odd jobs. See?" "You are not a Parisian?" "No, I was born in La Creuse. I used to work as a navvy in the Vosges. I left there the year the Prussians and other foreigners came. There were thousands of them. Can't understand where they all came from. Maybe you've heard of the war of the Prussians, young man?" He remained silent for a long spell and then resumed: "So you are out on a spree, my lad. You don't feel like going back to the works yet?" "I am an actor," replied Chevalier. The old man who did not understand, inquired: "Where is it, your works?" Chevalier was anxious to rouse the old man's admiration. "I play comedy parts in a big theatre," he said. "I am one of the principal actors at the Odeon. You know the Odeon?" The watchman shook his head. No, he did not know the Odeon. After a prolonged silence, he once more opened the black cavern of his mouth: "And so, young man, you are on the loose. You don't want to go back to the works, eh?" Chevalier replied: "Read the paper the day after to-morrow, you will see my name in it."