"Don't you be afraid, old Dead-Alive! If Frank don't make a stiff'un of the bailey, it won't be our fault, that you may take your oath of!" And, while uttering these words, Nicholas went forth from the day-room. At this moment Maitre Boulard entered the yard, smoking a cigar, his hands buried in the pockets of his gray duffle dressing-gown, his peaked cap pulled down well over his ears, and a look of chuckling satisfaction upon his fat, full-blown countenance. He quickly espied Nicholas, who was busily occupied gazing around in search of Frank. That person was at that precise period of time busily occupied, in company with his friend Gros-Boiteux, in eating his dinner, and, from the position in which they sat on one of the benches, they perceived not the presence of the bailiff. Acting in implicit obedience to the directions given him by the Skeleton, directly Nicholas, from the corner of his eye, descried the approach of Maitre Boulard, he feigned entire ignorance of his vicinity, but made for the place where Frank and his companions were seated. "How are you, my ticket?" inquired the bailiff of Nicholas. "Bless me!" answered he; "I declare I didn't see you. I suppose you're like me, come out to take a sniff of fresh air and have your daily walk?" "Why, that's about it. But I happen to have more reasons than one to-day; and I tell you how it is. But, first of all, catch hold of one of these cigars; they're deuced good ones. Come, don't be so missy and shy about it; take as many as you like. Hang it all, when men are shut up together in a place like this, they oughtn't to be stingy." "You are very good, and so are your cigars. But you were saying you had several reasons for walking out to-day?" "Well, and so I have. First and foremost, I don't feel as hungry as usual; so, thinks I, I'll go and look on while those chaps eat their dinner. Who knows but the sight of their jaws all working away together may screw me up a bit, and give me a relish against feeding-time?" "A famous idea!" said Nicholas. "But if you really do want to see a couple of feeders, just draw this way. There!" added he, pointing to the bench on which Frank was sitting; "what do you think of a pair of grubbers like those? I should say we were better behind than before them, or they might even swallow us instead of those huge lumps of bread and cheese and onions so rapidly stowed away in their capacious jaws." "Let's have a look at them!" said Maitre Boulard. "Well, to be sure!" cried Nicholas, with feigned surprise; "I declare one of them is Gros-Boiteux!" Gros-Boiteux and Frank both turned around at these words. Stupefied and speechless, the bailiff continued to gaze in utter amazement at the man he had so wronged, while, starting up with a sudden spring, Frank threw down the morsel he had been eating, and darting on Maitre Boulard, he seized him by the throat, exclaiming, "My money--my money; give me my money!"