"Are you going far?" "I am going to Paris." "You won't be long getting there; you're going at a good pace. As for me, I have too big a load on my shoulders to walk so quickly." I slackened my pace. Why had this man spoken to me? What was he carrying in this big pack? Vague suspicions of crime sprang up in my mind, and rendered me curious. The columns of the newspapers every morning contain so many accounts of crimes committed in this place, the peninsula of Gennevilliers, that some of them must be true. Such things are not invented merely to amuse readers--all this catalogue of arrests and varied misdeeds with which the reports of the law courts are filled. However, this man's voice seemed rather timid than bold, and up to the present his manner had been more discreet than aggressive. In my turn I began to question him: "And you--are you going far?" "Not farther than Asnieres." "Is Asnieres your place of abode?" "Yes, monsieur, I am a peddler by occupation, and I live at Asnieres." He had quitted the sidewalk, where pedestrians move along in the daytime under the shadows of the trees, and he was soon in the middle of the road. I followed his example. We kept staring at each other suspiciously, each of us holding his stick in his hand. When I was sufficiently close to him, I felt less distrustful. He evidently was disposed to assume the same attitude towards me, for he asked: "Would you mind going a little more slowly?" "Why do you say this?" "Because I don't care for this road by night. I have goods on my back, and two are always better than one. When two men are together, people don't attack them." I felt that he was speaking truly, and that he was afraid. So I yielded to his wishes, and the pair of us walked on, side by side, this stranger and I, at one o'clock in the morning, along the road leading from Argenteuil to Asnieres. "Why are you going home so late when it is so dangerous?" I asked my companion. He told me his history. He had not intended to return home this evening, as he had brought with him that very morning a stock of goods to last him three or four days. But he had been so fortunate in disposing of them that he found it necessary to get back to his abode without delay in order to deliver next day a number of things which had been bought on credit. He explained to me with genuine satisfaction that he had managed the business very well, having a tendency to talk confidentially, and that the knick-knacks he displayed were useful to him in getting rid, while gossiping, of other things which he could not easily sell. He added: "I have a shop in Asnieres. 'Tis my wife keeps it." "Ah! So you're married?" "Yes, m'sieur, for the last fifteen months. I have got a very nice wife. She'll get a surprise when she sees me coming home to-night." He then gave me an account of his marriage. He had been after this young girl for two years, but she had taken time to make up her mind.