Carrambo! Diable! D----n it!"
"Hist!" suddenly says Chamounix the rag-picker, who is worth 20,000,000
francs, "some one comes!"
The cellar door opened and a man crept softly down the rickety steps.
The crowd watches him with silent awe.
He went to the bar, laid his card on the counter, bought a drink of
absinthe, and then drawing from his pocket a little mirror, set it up on
the counter and proceeded to don a false beard and hair and paint his
face into wrinkles, until he closely resembled an old man seventy-one
years of age.
He then went into a dark corner and watched the crowd of people with
sharp, ferret-like eyes.
Gray Wolf slipped cautiously to the bar and examined the card left by
the newcomer.
"Holy Saint Bridget!" he exclaims. "It is Tictocq, the detective."
Ten minutes later a beautiful woman enters the cellar. Tenderly
nurtured, and accustomed to every luxury that money could procure,
she had, when a young vivandiere at the Convent of Saint Susan de la
Montarde, run away with the Gray Wolf, fascinated by his many crimes and
the knowledge that his business never allowed him to scrape his feet in
the hall or snore.
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