"Bah! amongst friends there should be no ceremony." "I know them well, and I tell you that we must not think of going before ten o'clock." "Are you out of your senses, young man?" "I give you my opinion, and devil fetch me if I stir from here before ten o'clock." "Don't disturb yourself,--I never close my establishment before midnight," said Bras Rouge, in his falsetto voice; "it is the time when my best customers drop in; and my neighbours never complain of the noise which is made in my house." "I must agree to all you wish, young man," continued the Schoolmaster. "Be it so, then; we will not set out on our visit until ten o'clock." "Here is the Chouette!" said Bras Rouge, hearing and replying to a warning cry similar to that which the Schoolmaster had uttered before he descended to the subterraneous abode. A minute afterwards the Chouette entered the billiard-room alone. "It is all right, my man,--I've done the trick!" cried the one-eyed hag, as she entered. Bras Rouge discreetly withdrew, without asking a word about Tortillard, whom, perhaps, he did not expect to see return. The beldam sat with her face towards Rodolph and the brigand. "Well?" said the Schoolmaster. "The young fellow has told us all true, so far." "Ah! you see I was right," exclaimed Rodolph. "Let the Chouette tell her tale, young man. Come, tell us all about it, Finette." "I went straight to No. 17, leaving Tortillard on the lookout and concealed in a corner. It was still daylight, and I rung at a side door which opens outwards, and here's about two inches of space between it and the sill; nothing else to notice. I rang; the porter opened. Before I pulled the bell I had put my bonnet in my pocket, that I might look like a neighbour. As soon as I saw the porter I pretended to cry violently, saying that I had lost a pet parrot, Cocotte,--a little darling that I adored. I told him I lived in the Rue Marboeuf, and that I had pursued Cocotte from garden to garden, and entreated him to allow me to enter and try and find the bird." "Ah!" said the Schoolmaster, with an air of proud satisfaction, pointing to Finette, "what a woman!" "Very clever," said Rodolph. "And what then?" "The porter allowed me to look for the creature, and I went trotting all around the garden, calling 'Cocotte! Cocotte!' and looked about me in every direction to scrutinise every thing. Inside the walls," continued the horrid old hag, going on with her description of the premises, "inside the walls, trellis-work all around,--a perfect staircase; at the left-hand corner of the wall a fir-tree, just like a ladder,--a lying-in woman might descend by it. The house has six windows on the ground floor, and has no upper story,--six small windows without any fastening. The windows of the ground floor close with shutters, having hooks below and staples in the upper part: press in the bottom, use your steel file--" "A push," said the Schoolmaster, "and it is open." The Chouette continued: