Mother Toulouche asked if he had got mixed up in the Dollon affair. Cranajour cocked his ear at that, whilst pretending to put a great bundle of old clothes in order. But Nibet replied: "The Beadle has nothing whatever to do with that business.... I know what I know about all that.... He's afraid of getting what the Cooper got, so he keeps away. He's not far out either--you've got to be careful these days--queer times!" Ernestine and Mother Toulouche bewailed the Cooper's fate: "Poor fellow! No sooner out of quod than back--only a fortnight's liberty! And with a vile accusation fastened to him--smuggling and coining!" Nibet tried to relieve their minds: "Haven't I told you," growled he, "that I'm going to get Maitre Henri Robart to defend him? He knows how to get round juries: he'll get the Cooper off with an easy sentence." Nibet looked at his watch: "It will soon be half-past two! Got to go down! The boatman will be there before long, at the mouth of the sewer!" Mother Toulouche, who was always in a flurry when smuggled goods were to be unloaded in her cellars, tried to dissuade Nibet: "You'll never be able to manage it by yourself!" Nibet glanced at Cranajour. The warder hesitated, then said: "Since there's no one else, couldn't I take Cranajour with me?" At first objections were raised; there was a low-voiced discussion, so that the simpleton might not catch what they were saying: Cranajour had never been up to dodges of this kind: so far he had been kept out of them; besides, he was such a senseless cove, he might give things away, make a hash of it! Nibet smiled: "Why, it's just because he is such a simpleton, and because he hasn't a mite of memory that we can use him safely!" "That's true!" said Mother Toulouche, somewhat reassured. She called to Cranajour: "Come along, Cranajour, and just tell us where you dined this evening!" The simpleton seemed to make a prodigious effort of memory, seized his head between his hands, closed his eyes, and racked his brains: after quite a long silence, he declared emphatically and with a distressed air: "Faith, I can't tell you now!" Nibet, who had closely watched this performance, nodded: "It's quite all right," he said. The cellars below Mother Toulouche's store were extensive, dark, and ill-smelling. The walls glistened with exuding damp, and the ground was a sticky mass of foul mud, of all sorts of refuse, of putrefying matter. Nibet, followed by his companion, made his way down to them: it was no easy descent, for they had to climb over cases of all kinds, and over bales and bundles that moved and rolled about. They passed into a smaller cellar, around which were ranged long boxes of tin with rusty covers.