"I was an ass, and I've suffered for it," said Frank, quickly; "but every sin has its repentance. I was good once, and now I'm a prig for the rest of my days. Let 'em look out when I get out." "What happened to you, Frank?" "What happens to every free convict who is donkey enough to think he can turn honest. Fate is just! When I left Melun I'd saved nine hundred and odd francs." "Yes, that's true," said the Gros-Boiteux, "all his misfortunes have come from his keeping his savings, instead of spending 'em jolly when he left the 'jug.' You see what repentance leads to!" "They sent me, _en surveillance_, to Etampes," replied Frank; "being a locksmith by trade, I went to a master in my line and said to him, 'I am a freed convict, I know no one likes to employ such, but here are nine hundred francs of my savings, give me work, my money will be your guarantee, for I want to work and be honest.'" "What a joke!" "Well, you'll see how it answered. I offered my savings as a guarantee to the master locksmith that he might give me work. 'I'm not a banker to take money on interest,' says he to me, 'and I don't want any freed convicts in my shop. I go to work in houses to open doors where keys are lost, I have a confidential business, and if it were known that I employed a freed convict amongst my workmen I should lose my customers. Good day, my man.'" "Wasn't that just what he deserved, Cardillac?" "Exactly." "You simpleton!" said the Gros-Boiteux to Frank, with a paternal air; "instead of breaking your ban at once, and coming to Paris to melt your mopusses, so that you might not have a sou left, but be compelled to return to robbing. You see the end of your fine ideas." "That's what you are always saying," said Frank, with impatience; "it is true I was wrong not to spend my 'tin,' for I have not even enjoyed it. Well, as there were only four locksmiths in Etampes, he whom I had first addressed had soon told all the others, and they said to me as had said their fellow tradesman, 'No, thank ye.' All sung the same song." "Only see, now, what it all comes to! You must see that we are all marked for life." "Well, then, I was on the idle of Etampes, and my money melted and melted," continued Frank, "but no work came. I left Etampes, in spite of my surveillance, and came to Paris, where I found work immediately, for my employer did not know who or what I was, and it's no boast to say I am a first-rate workman. Well, I put my seven hundred francs which I had remaining into an agent's hands, who gave me a note for it; when that was due he did not pay me, so I took my note to a _huissier_, who brought an action against him, and recovered the money, which I left in his hands, saying to myself there's something for a rainy day. Well, just then I met the Gros-Boiteux."