"Listen! There is a capital joke with my thousand francs, I bought myself a black wig, shaved my whiskers, put on blue spectacles, bent my head on one side, and made up my back as if it were humped, and then went in search of two apartments to let, on the ground floor, in a bustling part of the city. I found what I looked for in the Rue de Provence, and paid a month in advance, under the name of M. Gregoire. Next day I went to the Temple to buy furniture for my two rooms, with my black wig, my hump, and blue glasses, so that I might be easily recognised. Well, I sent the goods to the Rue de Provence, and, moreover, six silver spoons, which I bought in the Boulevard St. Denis, still disguised with my hump. I returned then to arrange all my affairs in my residence. I told the porter I should not sleep there until the following night, and took away my key. The windows of the two rooms were closed with strong shutters. Before I went away I had purposely left one with the bolt undrawn. The night came, and I put off my wig, my spectacles, my hump, and the clothes in which I had made my purchases and hired my apartments, putting this suit in a portmanteau, which I forwarded to M. Murphy, M. Rodolph's friend, begging him to take care of it for me. I then bought this blouse, and the blue cotton cap, and a bar of iron two feet long; and at one o'clock in the morning I went into the Rue de Provence, where I lurked about before my lodging, awaiting the moment when the patrol would pass and prevent my robbing myself,--committing a burglary on my own premises, in order to be caught and apprehended." And the Chourineur burst into a fit of hearty laughter. "I begin to understand," cried Germain. "But I was nearly getting in a 'fix,' for no patrol passed. I might have robbed myself twenty times with the greatest ease and safety. At last, about two o'clock in the morning, I heard the tread of the soldier boys, and then I pushed open the window, jumped into the room, pocketed the silver spoons and some other trifles. Fortunately the lively patrol had heard the smash of the windows, and just as I leaped out of the window they laid hands upon me. They knocked at the door, which the porter opened, they sent for the sergeant of police, who came. The porter told him that the two rooms had been hired that morning by a humpbacked gentleman, with black hair and blue spectacles, whose name was Gregoire. I had the thick head of hair which you now see, and my eyes were as wide open as a hare's on the watch, was as upright as a Russian sentinel, and could not be taken for a humpbacked gentleman, with blue glasses and black hair. I confessed all, and was conducted to the station, and from the station to this prison, where I arrived in the nick of time to snatch from the clutch of the Skeleton the young man of whom M. Rodolph had said to me, 'I am interested in him as much as if he were my own son.'" "What do I not owe you for such devotion?"