wine salad of which he had spoken before. Behind Bonbonne came
Bouzille, who had left his turn-out on the pavement and come down into
the supper room to eat and drink his five francs, and more if credit
could be got.

Benoit caught sight of Hogshead Geoffroy and immediately offered to
clink glasses with him; he pushed a glass towards him, inviting him to
dip it with the rest into the steaming bowl; but Geoffroy was warming up
under the influence of alcohol, and broke into a sudden flame of wrath
at sight of Mealy Benoit. If Benoit should be given the first place, it
would be a rank injustice, he reflected, for he, Geoffroy, was most
certainly the stronger man. And besides, the sturdy Hogshead was
beginning to wonder whether his rival might not have devised an odious
plot against him and put the famous piece of orange-peel upon the track,
but for which Geoffroy would have won hands down. So Geoffroy, very
drunk, offered Benoit, who was no whit more sober, the gross affront of
refusing to clink glasses with him!

"Why, it's you!" exclaimed Bouzille, in ringing tones of such glad
surprise that everybody turned round to see whom he was addressing.
Julot and Berthe looked with the rest.

"Why, it's the green man of just now," said the asylum nurse to her
companion, and he assented, moodily enough.

"Yes, it's him right enough."

Bouzille took no notice of the attention he had provoked, and did not
seem to notice that the green man appeared to be anything but pleased at
having been recognised.

"I've seen you before, I know," he went on; "where have I met you?"

The green man did not answer; he affected to be engrossed in a most
serious conversation with the friend he had brought with him into the
supper room, a shabby individual who carried a guitar. But Bouzille was
not to be put off, and suddenly he exclaimed, with perfect indifference
to what his neighbours might think:

"I know: you are the tramp who was arrested with me down there in Lot!
The day of that murder--you know--the murder of the Marquise de
Langrune!"

Bouzille in his excitement had caught the green man by the sleeve, but
the green man impatiently shook him off, growling angrily.

"Well, and what about it?"

* * * * *

For some minutes now Hogshead Geoffroy and Mealy Benoit had been
exchanging threatening glances. Geoffroy had given voice to his
suspicions, and kind friends had not failed to report his words to
B