"As a matter of fact, Adolphe, I can assure you that the things of which I dream--and I remember now that I have dreamt of them three times--are perhaps real in the past or future, but that I have never seen them in the present." "You understand my point," said Adolphe in a gratified tone. "But what are these things you have dreamt of but never seen?" "That won't take long to tell and thank goodness for it, for they're not particularly pleasant. I dreamt that I was married to a wife whom I called Marie-Antoinette and who annoyed me extremely." "And then?" said Adolphe, whose eyes never quitted the document. "And then I cut her up into little bits," said Theophrastus, blushing faintly. "What a horrible thing to do!" cried Marceline. "As a matter of fact it was rather horrible," said Theophrastus. "And then I put the pieces into a basket and was going to throw them into the Seine near the little bridge of the Hôtel-de-Ville. At that point I awoke; and I was jolly glad to awake, for it wasn't a pleasant dream." "It's awful!" cried Adolphe; and he banged his fist down on the table. "Isn't it?" said Marceline. "Not the dream! But I've just succeeded in reading the whole of the first line of the document! That's what's awful!" groaned Adolphe. "What is it? What have you found out?" cried Theophrastus in a panic-stricken tone as he sprang up to pore over the document. "It reads _I rt uried my treasures_. And you don't know what that _rt_ stands for? Well, I'm not going to tell you till I have made absolutely sure. I shall be absolutely sure by to-morrow. To-morrow, Theophrastus, at two o'clock, meet me at the corner of Guénégaud and Mazarine Streets." He rose. "In the meantime I'll take these things along to my friend Mifroid, who will restore them to their owners. Good-night, and courage, Theophrastus--above everything--courage!" He shook Theophrastus' hand, with the lingering pressure with which one shakes the hand of a relation of the corpse at a funeral, and departed. That night Theophrastus did not sleep. While Marceline breathed peacefully by his side, he lay awake staring into the darkness. His own breathing was irregular and broken by deep sighs. A heavy oppression weighed on his heart. The day dawned on Paris gloomily faint and dirty, throwing over its buildings a sinister veil. In vain did the summer sun strive to penetrate that thick and smoky air. Noon, the hour of its triumph, showed only a dull ball, rolling ingloriously in a sulphurous mist. At six o'clock Theophrastus suddenly jumped out of bed, and awoke Marceline by a burst of insensate laughter. She asked the reason of his strange mirth; and he answered that Nature had not given him a mouth large enough to laugh at the face Commissary Mifroid, who did not believe in pickpockets, would pull at the sight of Adolphe emptying his pockets of the collection with which he had stuffed them. Then he went on to say in the tone of an official instructor: