"O mercy! do not listen to it, I beg of you. Ugh, I can't bear it any longer. What the devil sort of man are you? Did you come from the Chateau de Vincennes? Because I offer to help you look for your lost purse, you try to strangle me!" "My purse? what, you were talking about money?" "How could I talk about anything else after having had so much of it as I have." "Excuse me, monsieur, I didn't understand you." "I'm beginning to see that; but, by jingo, we were nearly choked, that is to say, you choked me. What a grip you have, it's like mine when I hold Rolande. It appears that it's not money you've lost, then?" "O monsieur, would to heaven it were! I would give all I possess to recover her whom I adore--she who was about to become my wife!" "Poor simpleton," said Chaudoreille to himself, "it's on account of a woman that he's lamenting thus. He doesn't know what it is to lose two hundred pistoles, without counting the small change. But since he's not been robbed, I'll try to make him useful--if I could replenish my pockets by helping him to find his lass!" The chevalier rose, and seating himself on a stone near Urbain, said to him, in a feeling voice,-- "Tell me your troubles, young man, I'm the protector of everything in nature that suffers--in consideration of a slight gratuity; but I never charge anything, trusting to the generosity of those whom I oblige." "What could you do for me, monsieur? I have not the least trace of the abductors, nor of the route they have taken. Oh, I feel that courage has abandoned me." "What a thing to say, young man! Courage should never leave you. For shame!--in all the phases of life it is courage which makes us equal the gods, who, in truth, should not fear death itself, since they are immortal. But to return to you. If you have money it is always a resource. I shall help you to find your sweetheart; two of my friends are detectives, that is to say, they operate as amateurs for the good of humanity. Tell me in what neighborhood did the little one live?" "In the Rue des Bourdonnais, with the barber Touquet, who brought her up." "At the barber's? Rue des Bourdonnais--and your sweetheart is named Blanche?" "Yes, monsieur, do you know her? Oh, pray tell me." "One moment, one moment, my young friend. Hang it! this is an event for which I--give us your hand; by jingo, you're very fortunate to have met me." "What! can you help me to find Blanche?" and Urbain threw himself on Chaudoreille's neck. "This young man is the one Blanche was going to marry," said the Gascon to himself, as he disengaged himself from Urbain's grasp. "It appears as though the marquis had already carried the little one off; but he has paid me, I have nothing more to hope for from him; so I must turn to the young lover's side. However, I shall be prudent and not let him know who I am, nor what I have done in this intrigue." Urbain pressed Chaudoreille to explain himself, and the latter answered, in a mysterious tone,--