I could have
robbed myself twenty times at my ease. At length, about two o'clock, I
heard the snails at the end of the street; I opened my window, and broke
two or three panes of glass to make a devil of a noise; I dashed in the
window, jumped into the room, and seized the money box and some clothes.
Happily, the patrol had heard the jingling of the glass just as I got out
of the window. I was nabbed by the guard, who, at the noise of breaking
glass, had come to see what was the matter. They knocked at the door; the
porter opened it; they sent for the commissary; he came; the porter said
that the rooms had been taken the evening previous by a gentleman with a
hunchback, with black hair and blue spectacles, and who was named Gregoire.
I had the flaxen wool which you see; I had my eyes open like a hare in her
form; I was as straight as a Russian at the command, 'Carry arms!' They
could never take me for the hunchback, with blue spectacles and black
locks. I confessed every, thing; I was arrested; they took me to the
station--from there, here; and I arrived at a good moment, just in time to
snatch from the claws of the Skeleton the young man of whom M. Rudolph had
said, 'I am as much interested for him as for my own son.'"
"Oh! what do I not owe you for such services!" cried Germain.
"It is not me--it is to M. Rudolph you owe it.'
"But the cause of his interest for me.
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