A few stories may be inserted here illustrating the more prominent traits of the French detectives, their patience, courage promptitude, and ingenuity. No pains are too great to take; a clue is followed up at all costs and all hazards. The French detective is equal to any labours, any hardships, any emergency, any dangers. The words "two pounds of butter," written on a scrap of paper found on the theatre of a great crime, led Canler and his officers to visit every butterman's shop in Paris, till at last the man who had sold and the criminal who had bought the butter were found. In the same way a knife picked up was shown to every cutler until it was identified and the purchaser traced. A murdered man had been seen in company with another the day before the crime; the latter was described to the police, who got on his track within twenty-four hours, checked the employment of his time, and found the tailor who had sold him his clothes; within another day his lodging was known, on the fourth he was arrested and the crime brought home to him. Two men on the watch for a criminal held on three days and nights out of doors, in December, almost without food, and, to justify their presence in the high road, pretended to be navvies working at repairs. Four detectives, in pursuit of five murderers, divided the business among them: one played the flute at a hall often visited by their men, another sold pencils in the street, a third worked in brickfields frequented by their quarry, a fourth kept the men wanted constantly in view. [Illustration: FRENCH DETECTIVES PLAYING THE PART OF NAVVIES.] Another detective disguised himself as a floor polisher, simply to get on friendly terms with a man of the same calling, who was an assassin. The disguises assumed are various and surprising, and this may be taken as fact in spite of statements to the contrary. A detective has been seen in a blue blouse distributing leaflets in the street, and has been recognised (by a friend) in correct evening dress at a diplomatic reception. There was once attached to the Prefecture a regular wardrobe of all sorts of costumes, and a dressing-room as in a theatre, with wigs and all facilities for "making up." This is now left to the individual himself, but not the less does he disguise. So sedulous are these detectives in playing assumed parts, that it is told of two who were employed in a high-class case, one as master, the other as valet, that after the job was done, the master had so identified himself with his part as to check his comrade afterwards for his familiarity in addressing him! [Illustration: IN THE RUE CAPRON BRANCH OF THE MONT DE PIETÉ]