"_Mon Dieu!_" cried Mimi. "What bank have you been robbing?" Jacques laughed, then he explained, and as he explained Mimi counted the money, dropping it back into the little paper bag coin by coin. "So you see," finished Jacques, "it's yours; and since you are mine, ma mie--it's mine. Take it and use it. In three years I will be a free man, and if you care for me as you say you do, and if you have any luck with the business you start in, we may do well together, you and I. There's not a man knows more of the ins and outs of Sidi-bel-Abbès than myself." Mimi leaning her arms comfortably on the counter, they began to talk. It was more like the conversation of two business people than two lovers, but it ended in a kiss given across the counter as a seal of the compact. Jacques had confessed that he had kept four louis back for his own private use. Three of these he handed to Mimi, at her request, to keep for him. "I will be your banker," said she. Jacques returned to barracks that night in high good spirits. Strangely enough, the money had weighed on him, making him irritable; he had been afraid of losing it, afraid of being robbed, a hundred plans for spending it had fought with another only to be conquered by the plan he had just carried through. His mind was easy now, and he had the satisfaction not only of knowing that Mimi was now his for certain, but also of the surety that he had made a very good deal in a business way. With Mimi waiting for him till he came out of the Legion he would have something to live for, and all the time he was serving the completion of his term she would be building up their business. No man knew better than Jacques what possibilities for making money lay in Sidi-bel-Abbès. As cunning as a monkey and as sharp as a weasel, Jacques had plumbed all the depths of the town. Though the pay of the Legion is only a half-penny a day there is money in the Legion. Nearly every légionnaire who has a friend or a relative in any part of the world becomes a beggar-man, money orders are constantly arriving and the money when it arrives is spent at once. He reckoned on the Legion as a good customer for the new business. Then there was the possibility of money-lending in the town, beginning very small, of course, and increasing by degrees; and there were things to be bought and sold in illicit ways, visitors to be fleeced and natives to be plundered. Before he went asleep that night he was driving in his automobile through Sidi-bel-Abbès with Mimi at his side.