"You don't believe me, old chap," he exclaimed; "why, don't imagine that it would be the first time! Many are the times when I have _chouriné_ (stabbed) a bloke. Me and two others we were for a long time in _les boulevards extérieurs_ (a part of Paris which at that time was still most dangerous), and a pretty good haul we sometimes made. I remember once an old woman was going home late at night--we knew her well--she owned a good lot of property, and she had been to collect her rents that day. One of us followed her the whole day, and in the evening he came to tell us that she had gone to dinner with her daughter. You bet, we kept a look-out for her. At ten o'clock, sure enough, there she comes. The _sergots_ had just turned up a side-street to make their rounds, and we knew that the coast would be clear for at least a quarter of an hour. We hid in a doorway, and as she passed us Bibi le Mufle jumps on her from behind, while the other chap who was with me lands her one in the mouth. We laid her on the ground, and I was searching her pocket when she begins to kick up the devil's own row, and shouts 'Murder! Police!' I couldn't find anything in her pockets, and just then a bloke who had heard her giving tongue comes along, and he begins shouting 'Police! Murder!' 'Oh,' I says, 'I'll soon give him "Murder."' What does a bloke deserve who comes and interferes with gentlemen at their business? So I rush at him and I soon stopped his howling with a jab from my _Eustace_ (slang word used for big knife). The others, who were busy searching the old woman, never noticed the police who had come round, and although I shouted to warn them that '_les pantes_' (the police) were coming, they couldn't make tracks in time. Bibi le Mufle tried to run away, but unfortunately he fell over my bloke, and they collared him there. They accused him of having done for the chap, but he swore that it wasn't true. The old woman recovered, and so did the bloke, and you'd never guess what that man did. He swore that it was Bibi le Mufle who had stabbed him. And the old woman, who was stupid-like when she recovered, swore that only two chaps had attacked her. The others behaved like bricks, they never gave me away, and so I got up a collection to get them a good counsel, and they only got three years; so you see, old chap, I am not afraid to use my knife, and I swear to God that some day or other I'll have the life of one of them chaps who knocked me about as they have, and, what's more, he concluded, _j'en ai soupé du régiment_ (I am sick of the regiment), and I mean to make a clean bolt of it the moment I get out of prison." It will be seen that my prison companions were not very desirable acquaintances. When I went to the medical visit the following morning, the doctor took me apart, and asked me to tell him exactly what I had done to be treated with such extreme severity. I began to tell him the same story as I had told my Captain, but he stopped me.