I got to my feet in agitation. Now, suddenly it was borne to me that from the moment of issue of that little incisive wail a formless wonder had been germinating in my soul. Carinne present at my trial!--no, no, it was impossible--unless---- “Citizen, the patriots in this corridor send thee greeting.” I started as if a bullet had flown past my ear. The voice seemed to come from the next cell. I swept the cobwebs from my forehead. “A thousand thanks!” I cried. “They have dreamt that the ass cursed the thorough-bred for the niceness of his palate,” went on the voice, “and most heartily they commiserate thee.” There followed a faint receding sound like laughter and the clapping of hands. I had no idea what to say; but the voice relieved me of the embarrassment. “May I ask the citizen’s name?” “I am the Comte de la Muette.” “_Allons donc!_”--and the information, it seemed, was passed from cell to cell. “Monsieur,” then came the voice, “we of the Community of the Eremites of St Pélagie offer thee our most sympathetic welcome, and invite thee to enrol thyself a member of our Society. Permit me, the President, by name Marino, to have the honour of proposing thee for election.” “By all means. And what excludes, Monsieur le Président?” “_D’une haleine_ (I mention it to monsieur as a matter of form), to have been a false witness or a forger of assignats.” “Then am I eligible.” “Surely, monsieur. How could one conceive it otherwise! And it remains only to ask--again as a matter of form--thy profession, thy abode, and the cause of thy arrest.” “Very well. My profession is one of attachment to a beautiful lady; I live, I dare to believe, in her heart; and, for my arrest, it was because, in these days of equality, I sought to remain master of myself.” My answer was passed down the line. It elicited, I have the gratification to confess, a full measure of applause. “I have the honour to inform M. le Comte,” said the President, “that he is duly elected to the privileges of the Society. I send him a fraternal embrace.” My inclination jumped with the humour of the thing. It was thus that these unfortunates, condemned to solitary confinement, had conceived a method of relieving the deadly tedium of their lot. Thus they passed to one another straws of information gleaned from turnkeys or from prisoners newly arrived. And in order to the confusion of any guard that might overhear them, they studied, in their inter-communications, to speak figuratively, to convey a fact through a fable, or, at the least, to refer their statements to dreams that they had dreamt. At the same time they formed a Society rigidly exclusive. Admitted rascals, imprisoned in the corridor, they would by no means condescend to notice. I had an example of this once during the afternoon, when the whole place echoed with phantom merriment over a jest uttered by a member. “M. le Comte!” cried a voice from the opposite row: “I could tell thee a better tale than that.”