f an instant for the lithe, nimble fingers
of the ex-gamin to undo the bag without touching the seal; to see that
it contained a hundred Napoleons with a note; to slip the gold into the
folds of his ceinturon; to fill up the sack with date-stones; to make
it assume its original form so that none could have imagined it had been
touched, and to proceed with it thus to the Moorish lionne's dwelling.
The negro who always opened her door would take it in; Picpon would hint
to him to be careful, as it contained some rare and rich sweetmeats,
negro nature, he well knew, would impel him to search for the bonbons;
and the bag, under his clumsy treatment, would bear plain marks of
having been tampered with, and, as the African had a most thievish
reputation, he would never be believed if he swore himself guiltless.
Voila! Here was a neat trick! If it had a drawback, it was that it was
too simple, too little risque. A child might do it.

Still--a hundred Naps! What fat geese, what flagons of brandy, what
dozens of wine, what rich soups, what tavern banquets they would bring!
Picpon had chuckled again as he arranged the little bag so carefully,
with its date-stones, and pictured the rage of the beautiful Moor when
she should discover the contents and order the stick to her negro. Ah!
that was what Picpon called fun!

To appreciate the full force of such fun, it is necessary to have also
appreciated the gamin. To understand the legitimate aspect such a theft
bore, it is necessary to have also understood the unrecordable codes
that govern the genus pratique, into which the genus gamin, when at
maturity, develops.

Picpon was quite in love with his joke; it was only a good joke in his
sight; and, indeed, men need to live as hardly as an African soldier
lives, to estimate the full temptation that gold can have when you have
come to look on a cat as very good eating, and to have nothing to gnaw
but a bit of old shoe-leather through the whole of the long hours of a
burning day of fatigue-duty; and to estimate, as well, the full width
and depth of the renunciation that made him mutter now so valorously,
"Dame! I will give it up, then!"

Picpon did not know himself as he said it. Yet he turned down into a
lonely, narrow lane, under marble walls, overtopped with fig and palm
from some fine gardens; undid the bag for the second time; whisked out
the date-stones and threw them over the wall, so that they should be out
of his reach if he r