His reflections were cut short by the detective, who announced in his deliberate voice: “The fact is, you see, I have a horror of high chairs.” And as he uttered these extraordinary words, Tom Bob got up and, kneeling down on the floor, turned the chair he had been sitting on the minute before upside down, then drew from his pocket a hunting-knife. “Don’t be afraid, Monsieur Fandor, I’m not going to open the blade; it is the saw I want to use.” So saying, he extracted from the handle a little saw of the kind often found in such knives. “Go on, sir, go on!” Fandor protested. “Can I help you?” “Oh! no, it’s done in a moment,” and as if he were performing the most natural action in the world, Tom Bob, still on his knees, began to saw off the legs of the chair in front of him. “I have a horror of high chairs,” he said for the second time; “that’s why I saw off the legs, as you see, and convert it into a low one; it’ll cost me a trifle to pay for the damage, but what of that?... Ah! that’s done!” The detective had in fact abbreviated the chair legs by eight or nine inches. He set the chair on its feet again, and after making sure it stood firm, sat down; then springing up again, still without uttering a word, he went over to the bed standing on one side of the room, and picked up a pillow and bolster, which he threw down near the wall. “You are a young man, Monsieur Fandor,” he remarked, “you are not just come off a journey; you are not tired like me; besides, I don’t want to demolish _all_ the hotel furniture ... in a word, will you be so kind as to seat yourself on these improvised cushions?... yes? cross-legged, if you like.” This time Fandor showed such a comic face of astonishment that even the phlegmatic American could not help smiling. “I am not mad,” he observed simply by way of explanation, “but I have a horror of seeing people sitting in high chairs when I am myself seated in a low one—a whim, Monsieur Fandor, a monomania, if you like, of no importance.... Now, what can I do for you?” Jérôme Fandor squatted on the ground in obedience to the detective’s strange invitation, while the latter took _his_ place on the seat so oddly truncated. “Sir,” declared the journalist, “the name I have mentioned, the name of Juve, must have informed you of the object of my visit. You can guess ...” But Tom Bob uttered a sharp protest: “No, I know nothing, I cannot _guess_. Besides, I never guess; I infer, that’s all.” “Nevertheless you guessed my name, Monsieur Tom Bob?” “Not at all! I only inferred you were Fandor from the fact that you invoked Juve’s name by way of introduction to me and that, as I look at it, there can hardly be another individual but you, Jérôme Fandor, to act so imprudently as to name Juve as guarantee, when Juve is generally taken to be Fantômas!” On hearing the American’s words, Fandor sprang up instinctively to grasp his hand.