'd been in Paris a dozen years
ago. He was the Government's chief detective, and he knew more of
anarchists, yes, and of Apaches, too, than either you or I do. He had
more brains in his little finger than that whole lot babbling there
tonight. But the Government being a fool, as all governments are,
dismissed him, and because I was his assistant, they dismissed me as
well. They got rid of all his staff. Valmont disappeared. If I could
have found him, I wouldn't be sitting here with you tonight; but he
was right to disappear. The Government did all they could against us
who had been his friends, and I for one came through starvation, and
was near throwing myself in the Seine, which sometimes I wish I had
done. Here, garcon, another absinthe. But by-and-by I came to like the
gutter, and here I am. I'd rather have the gutter and absinthe than
the Luxembourg without it. I've had my revenge on the Government many
times since, for I knew their ways, and often have I circumvented the
police. That's why they respect me among the anarchists. Do you know
how I joined? I knew all their passwords, and walked right into one of
their meetings, alone and in rags.

'"Here am I," I said; "Adolph Simard, late second assistant to Eugene
Valmont, chief detective to the French Government."

'There were twenty weapons covering me at once, but I laughed.

'"I'm starving," I cried, "and I want something to eat, and more
especially something to drink. In return for that I'll show you every
rat-hole you've got. Lift the president's chair, and there's a
trap-door that leads to the Rue Blanc. I'm one of you, and I'll tell
you the tricks of the police."

'Such was my initiation, and from that moment the police began to pick
their spies out of the Seine, and now they leave us alone. Even
Valmont himself could do nothing against the anarchists since I have
joined them.'

Oh, the incredible self-conceit of human nature! Here was this ruffian
proclaiming the limitations of Valmont, who half an hour before had
shaken his hand within the innermost circle of his order! Yet my heart
warmed towards the wretch who had remembered me and my exploits.

It now became my anxious and difficult task to lure Simard away from
this cafe and its absinthe. Glass after glass of the poison had
brought him up almost to his former intellectual level, but now it
was shoving him rapidly down the hill again. I must know where his
room was situated, yet if I waited much