"Oh! yes, yes; I recollect. You told me that, my poor Bourdin; it was very funny. The best of the farce was that the portress of the house emptied on your backs a saucepan of boiling soup." "Saucepan included, general, which burst like a bomb at our feet. The old sorceress!" "That will be taken into your charge. But this handsome viscount?" "I tell you, then, that Saint Rémy was prosecuted for a robbery, after having made his ninny of a father believe that he had blown his brains out. An agent of the police, one of my friends, knowing that I had for a long time tracked this lord, asked me if I could not put him on the scent. I learned too late, at the time of our last writ, which he had escaped, that he was burrowed in a farm at Arnouville, at five leagues from Paris. But when we arrived there it was too late; the bird had flown! "Besides, he had the following day paid this bill of exchange, thanks to a certain great lady, they say. Yes, general; but no matter, I knew the rest. He had once been concealed there; he might well enough be concealed there a second time. That is what I said to my friend in the police. He proposed for me to lend a hand, as an amateur, and conduct him to the farm. I had nothing to do--it was a nice party to the country--I accepted." "Well! the viscount?" "Not to be found. After having at first wandered around the farm, and having afterward introduced ourselves there, we returned as wise as we went; and this is the reason I have not been able to render myself sooner to your orders, general." "I was very sure there was an impossibility on your part, my good fellow." "But, if it is not improper, tell me, how the devil did you get here?" "Vulgar people, my dear--a herd of riff-raff, who, for the miserable sum of sixty thousand francs, of which they pretend I have despoiled them, have carried a complaint against me for an abuse of confidence, and forced me to give up my commission." "Really! general? Ah, well! this is a misfortune! How--shall we work no more for you?" "I am on half-pay, my good Bourdin; here I am on an allowance." "But who is, then, so savage?" "Just imagine that one of the most severe against me is a liberated robber, who gave me to collect a bill of seven hundred miserable francs, for which it was necessary to prosecute. I did prosecute; I was paid, and I pocketed the money; and because, in consequence of speculations which did not succeed, I have spent this money, as well as that of many others, all the rubbishing lot have made such a brawling, that a writ was issued to arrest me, and thus you see me here, my good fellow; neither more nor less than a malefactor." "Take care that don't hurt you, general." "Yes; but what is most curious is, this convict has written to me, some days since, that this money, being his sole resource for rainy days, and that these days had now arrived (I do not know what lie means by that), I was responsible for the crimes he might commit to escape starvation."