have the
lace with me she'll want to see it, for it is a new style, and she'll
ask me to leave it with her on credit, instead of paying the bill;
therefore I don't want to take it. But,' he added, 'be sure not to touch
the paper that wraps the box, for there's nothing harder than to do up a
package in the same folds--'"

"The booby!" cried Cerizet, naively; "why, that very caution would make
the man want to open it."

"You are an able casuist," said du Portail. "Well, an hour later,
Charles Crochard, finding that nothing happened to him, returned to the
church to obtain his deposit, but Toupillier was no longer there. You
can imagine the anxiety with which Charles Crochard attended early mass
the next day, and approached the giver of holy water, who was there,
sure enough, attending to his functions. But night, they say, brings
counsel; the worthy beggar audaciously declared that he had received no
package, and did not know what his interlocutor meant."

"And there was no possibility of arguing with him, for that would be
exposure," remarked Cerizet, who was not far from sympathizing in a
trick so boldly played.

"No doubt," resumed du Portail; "the robbery was already noised about,
and Toupillier, who was a very able fellow, had calculated that Charles
Crochard would not dare to publicly accuse him, for that would reveal
the theft. In fact, on his trial Charles Crochard never said a word of
his mishap, and during the six years he spent at the galleys (he was
condemned to ten, but four were remitted) he did not open his lips to a
single soul about the treachery of which he had been a victim."

"That was pretty plucky," said Cerizet; the tale excited him, and he
showed openly that he saw the matter as an artist and a connoisseur.

"In that interval," continued du Portail, "Madame Beaumesnil died,
leaving her daughter a few fragments of a once great fortune, and the
diamonds which the will expressly stated Lydie was to receive 'in case
they were recovered.'"

"Ha! ha!" exclaimed Cerizet, "bad for Toupillier, because, having to do
with a man of your calibre--"

"Charles Crochard's first object on being liberated was vengeance on
Toupillier, and his first step was to denounce him to the police as
receiver of the stolen property. Taken in hand by the law, Toupillier
defended himself with such singular good-humor, being able to show that
no proof whatever existed against him, that the examining judge let him
off. He