-market. From the lottery of all sorts of miserable
employments he drew a goodly number. Who can say if the atmosphere of
honor which one breathes as a soldier, if military discipline might not
have saved him. Taken, in a cast of the net, with some young loafers who
robbed drunkards sleeping on the streets, he denied very earnestly
having taken part in their expeditions. Perhaps he told the truth, but
his antecedents were accepted in lieu of proof, and he was sent for
three years to Poissy. There he made coarse playthings for children, was
tattooed on the chest, learned thieves' slang and the penal-code. A new
liberation, and a new plunge into the sink of Paris; but very short this
time, for at the end of six months at the most he was again compromised
in a night robbery, aggravated by climbing and breaking--a serious
affair, in which he played an obscure role, half dupe and half fence. On
the whole his complicity was evident, and he was sent for five years at
hard labor. His grief in this adventure was above all in being separated
from an old dog which he had found on a dung-heap, and cured of the
mange. The beast loved him.

Toulon, the ball and chain, the work in the harbor, the blows from a
stick, wooden shoes on bare feet, soup of black beans dating from
Trafalgar, no tobacco money, and the terrible sleep in a camp swarming
with convicts; that was what he experienced for five broiling summers
and five winters raw with the Mediterranean wind. He came out from there
stunned, was sent under surveillance to Vernon, where he worked some
time on the river. Then, an incorrigible vagabond, he broke his exile
and came again to Paris. He had his savings, fifty-six francs, that is
to say, time enough for reflection. During his absence his former
wretched companions had dispersed. He was well hidden, and slept in a
loft at an old woman's, to whom he represented himself as a sailor,
tired of the sea, who had lost his papers in a recent shipwreck, and who
wanted to try his hand at something else. His tanned face and his
calloused hands, together with some sea phrases which he dropped from
time to time, made his tale seem probable enough.

[Illustration]

One day when he risked a saunter in the streets, and when chance had led
him as far as Montmartre, where he was born, an unexpected memory
stopped him before the door of Les Freres, where he had learned to
read. As it was very warm the door was open, and by a single glance the