"I have seen Plumard very often since. We sometimes dine together at the cook shop. A few days, or rather a few nights ago, I escorted my comrade home; it was very late, almost midnight; we had been singing and playing cards and drinking a long, long while, and Plumard, who is not over brave, was afraid to go home alone. He was in dread of falling in with Giovanni the robber--the famous Italian brigand whom our archers, our arquebusiers, our watch, in fact, all our soldiery, have not succeeded in catching. They are not shrewd. To secure that villain's arrest, I shall have to take a hand in it. But I will show them how to catch him. I know how they must go to work to do it, and----" "You will have Giovanni arrested?" cried Miretta, whose face had turned deathly pale. "Well, well! what has happened to you, child?" said Valentine, almost alarmed by her maid's abrupt exclamation. "Mon Dieu! how excited you are!" "I beg pardon, mademoiselle; excuse me; but monsieur said that he knew how they could arrest this Italian--this Giovanni." "How does that concern you? You do not seem to be afraid of him, for you never go out except at night, and you come home quite late, so Béatrix tells me." "That is true, mademoiselle; but, for all that, I would like to know----" "But I wish to know what concerns Monsieur Léodgard. I am not at all interested in this famous robber.--For heaven's sake, Monsieur Bahuchet, go on. You were taking your friend Plumard home, to Rue Dauphine." "Yes, mademoiselle; we were walking quietly along, arm in arm, talking together, and he was assuring me that he had discovered three more hairs on his head since the night before, and he attributed that capillary recrudescence to some grease made from a man who had been hanged, which an old woman had presented to him." "Ah! monsieur, you abuse my patience!" "A thousand pardons, mademoiselle! I continue.--About a hundred yards from the bath keeper's house, Plumard stopped and squeezed my arm. "'What is it?' I asked, without wincing. 'I am not afraid of anything; I am as brave as a lion. What did you see, Plumard?' "'What I saw,' he replied, 'was a man climbing into a window on the first floor of yonder house.' "And he pointed to Master Landry's house. "'Let us hurry,' said I; 'we must make sure of the fact.' "And I pulled Plumard along by the arm; but he did not go any more quickly for that. When we drew near the window in question, at which there is a balcony, we thought that we saw a rope, or a rope ladder, which someone hastily drew up. When we were in front of the house, we saw nothing.--Was it a lover? was it a thief?--I recalled Comte Léodgard's watches in front of the bathing establishment, and I said to Plumard: "'This must be the sequel of what we saw from your window.'