“Perhaps, yet even in a washing-bill, M. Ferminard, the end is the most important part, since it sums up the whole matter in francs and sous. But do not let me discourage you, for should you fail to find a good ending I will be able to supply you with one. An idea has occurred to me.” “And what is that idea, monsieur?” “I have, yet, to think it out. However, go on with your business in your own way and we will talk of the matter when you have finished. I wish now to sleep.” He felt irritated with Ferminard. Ferminard was the man who possessed the rope which was the only means of escape, and Ferminard, he felt, would refuse the rope to him, just as he had refused the big sou. By using arguments, threats, or entreaties he might be able to make Ferminard give him the rope, but he was not the man to threaten, entreat, or argue with an inferior. Besides, he was too lazy. The cutting of the window-bar was absorbing all his energies. Besides, why waste time and tongue-power to obtain a thing that could be obtained when desired by a little finesse. When the time came he would obtain the rope from Ferminard just as he had obtained the saw which Ferminard fancied still to be contained in the sou. Rochefort, whilst feeling friendly towards the dramatist, had very little respect for him; he might be a good actor, but it was evident that he was very much of a child. Besides, he was—as he himself confessed—one of the _rafataille_, a man of the people, and though M. de Rochefort was not in the least a snob, he looked upon the people from the viewpoint of his class. He was not in the least ashamed of the deception he had practiced on Ferminard. The little saw did not belong to Ferminard, he had found it by chance, and it was the property of the dead M. Thumery, or his heirs. CHAPTER IV THE TWO PRISONERS (_continued_) The next day passed without a visit from the governor, and the next. Rochefort ceased to ask about him; he resented this neglect, now, as a personal insult. He forgot that he was incarcerated under the name of La Porte, and that any neglect of M. La Porte, though unpleasant to M. de Rochefort, need not be taken as a personal affront. He would have resented the thing more had it not been that he was very busy. On the afternoon of the fourth day his work was complete. The bar was not quite divided, but sufficiently so to yield to a strong wrench. With his table-knife, which he had been allowed to keep, he had scraped away the rust where the upper part of the bar was mortised into the stone and had verified the weakness of this part of the attachment. He had fixed upon midnight as the hour for his evasion, and nothing remained now but to obtain the rope from the unsuspecting Ferminard.