"He was a very useful object, he was _the base of my column_," said Theophrastus. "And what's that--the base of your column?" "You don't understand? I'll just show you. Suppose you're Simon the Auvergnat," said Theophrastus with almost boyish eagerness. Adolphe was quite willing, but not for long. Theophrastus drew him across the road, set him against the wall of the Market-Gardeners' Hotel, showed him the position he was to take: to set his legs apart, and lean, lowering his head and raising his crossed arms, against the wall. "I place you here," he said, "because of the little ledge on the left, _I remember that it is very convenient_." "And next?" said Adolphe, leaning against the wall in the required position. "Next, since you are the base of my column, I mount on that base..." Before M. Lecamus had the time so much as to imagine a movement even, Theophrastus had climbed up on to his shoulders, sprung on to the ledge, leapt from it with one bound to the balcony of the house next door, and vanished through an open window into the room which opened on to it. M. Lecamus in a dazed consternation was gazing into the air, and asked himself where his friend Theophrastus could have vanished, when the street rang with piercing cries. A despairing voice howled, "Help! thieves! murderers!" "I might have expected it!" cried M. Lecamus; and he dashed into the house from which the screams issued, while the passers-by stood still, or hurried to the spot. He bounded up the great staircase with the swiftness of a young man, and reached the first floor at the very moment when a door opened, and Theophrastus appeared, hat in hand. He was bowing low to an old lady with chattering teeth, and crowned with curl papers, and said: "My dear madame, if I had thought for an instant that I should give you such a shock by entering your drawing-room by the window, I should have stayed quietly in the street. I am not, my dear madame, either a thief or a murderer, but an honest manufacturer of rubber stamps." Adolphe seized his arm and tried to drag him down the stairs. But Theophrastus went on: "It is entirely Adolphe's fault, my dear madame. He would have me show him how _Simon the Auvergnat acted as the base of my column_." Adolphe, behind Theophrastus, made signs to the lady of the curl papers that his friend was off his head. Thereupon the lady fell fainting into the arms of her maid, who came running up. Adolphe dragged Theophrastus down the staircase just as the hall filled with people from the street. The crowd took them for fellow-rescuers; and they escaped from the house without difficulty. In the street Theophrastus said cheerfully, "The most surprising thing about the whole matter, my dear Adolphe, was that this Simon the Auvergnat served us as the base of our column for more than two years without ever suspecting anything. He thought that he lent his strong shoulders to a band of young gentlemen of quality, who were amusing themselves!"[3]