Theophrastus gazed silently upon the radiant visage of M. Eliphas de la Nox (it would be unfair on the ink of the printer to give him his full name every time I mention him). Then, since he felt a sudden strong sympathy with this radiant being into whose presence he had been so suddenly introduced, in spite of having found him in a frame he thought almost diabolic, he plucked up courage and resolved to learn the meaning of all the strange things he had seen. "I don't know where I am," he said somewhat plaintively. "But since I see my friend Adolphe and my wife Marceline with you, I feel reassured. I should like very much to know your name." "My friend, I am called Eliphas de Saint-Elme de Taillebourg de la Nox." "You're really called all that?" said Theophrastus, who was beginning to recover his spirits. The radiant being bowed his head gravely. "Well, after all, there's nothing very astonishing in that," said Theophrastus. "My name, my real name, my actual family name, is Cartouche; and for a long time everybody has believed that it was a nickname." "Your name is _not_ Cartouche; it is Theophrastus Longuet," said M. Eliphas de la Nox with gentle firmness. "The one does not prevent the other," said Theophrastus, who better than anyone else knew what he was talking about, quite logically. "I beg your pardon," said M. Eliphas de la Nox, with the same gentle firmness. "You must not cherish this confusion of mind. _Once upon a time_ your name was Cartouche, but _now_ it is Theophrastus Longuet. Understand that: _you are_ Theophrastus Longuet. My friend, listen to me carefully, as you would listen to a physician who was going to heal you. For you are ill, my friend, very ill, exactly because you believe you are Cartouche, when you are really Theophrastus Longuet. I appeal to all the simplicity of your soul." "That's all right," said Theophrastus. "I like simple things myself; so I dislike very much, very much indeed, the way by which one comes to see you, through a labyrinth of passages, with skeletons hanging up in them. What's he doing in your house, by the way, that skeleton, instead of resting quietly on Saint-Chaumont Hill? _I recognised him at once._ They were dragging him to the charnel-house at the Gallows of Montfaucon the very day of my marriage with my dear wife Marie-Antoinette Neron, when we were having our wedding breakfast at the Chopinettes. Beaulieu and Old Easy-Going were with us. At that epoch, my dear M. Eliphas de Taillepot--" "Eliphas de Taillebourg," corrected Adolphe in a somewhat shocked tone.