The visiter entered. He was a sailor, evidently—a tall, stout, and muscular-looking man, with a certain dare-devil expression of countenance, not altogether unprepossessing. His face, greatly sunburnt, was more than half hidden by a world of whisker and _mustachio_. He had with him a huge oaken cudgel, but appeared to be otherwise unarmed. He bowed awkwardly, and bade us “good evening,” in French accents, which, although somewhat Neufchatel-ish, were still sufficiently indicative of a Parisian origin. “Sit down, my friend,” said Dupin, “I suppose you have called about the Ourang-Outang. Upon my word, I almost envy you the possession of him; a remarkably fine, and no doubt a very valuable animal. How old do you suppose him to be?” The sailor drew a long breath, with the air of a man relieved of some intolerable burden, and then replied, in an assured tone,— “I have no way of telling—but he can’t be more than four or five years old. Have you got him here?” “Oh no—we had no conveniences for keeping him here. He is at a livery stable in the Rue Dubourg, just by. You can get him in the morning. Of course you are prepared to identify the property?” “To be sure I am, sir.” “I shall be sorry to part with him,” said Dupin. “I don’t mean that you should be at all this trouble for nothing, sir,” said the man. “Couldn’t expect it. Am very willing to pay a reward for the finding of the animal—that is to say, any reward in reason.” “Well,” replied my friend, “that is all very fair, to be sure. Let me think!—what reward ought I to have? Oh! I will tell you. My reward shall be this. You shall give me all the information in your power about that affair of the murder in the Rue Morgue.” Dupin said these last words in a very low tone, and very quietly. Just as quietly, too, he walked towards the door, locked it, and put the key in his pocket. He then drew a pistol from his bosom and placed it, without the least flurry, upon the table. The sailor’s face flushed up with an ungovernable tide of crimson. He started to his feet and grasped his cudgel; but the next moment he fell back into his seat trembling convulsively, and with the countenance of death itself. He spoke not a single word. I pitied him from the bottom of my heart.