h, the vagabond, he has got his nose out of
window!" added the hag, as she saw the point of the stiletto coming
through the seam in the basket. And taking the weapon, which had a
wooden handle, from the basket, she replaced it so that it was
completely concealed. "This is _fourline's_ tool," she continued, "and
he has asked me for it so many times to kill the rats who came skipping
about him in his cellar. Poor things! They have no one but the old blind
man to divert them and keep them company. They ought not to be hurt if
they play about a bit; and so I will not let him hurt the dears, and I
keep his tool to myself. Besides, I shall soon want it for this woman,
perhaps. Thirty thousand francs' worth of diamonds,--what a 'haul' for
each of us! It'll be a good day's work, and not like that of the other
day with that old notary whom I thought to squeeze. It was no use to
threaten him if he would not 'stand some blunt' that I would lay
information that it was his housekeeper who had sent La Goualeuse to me
by Tournemine when she was a little brat. Nothing frightened the old
brute, he called me an old hag, and shoved me out-of-doors. Well, well,
I'll send an anonymous letter to these people at the farm where
Pegriotte was, to inform them that it was the notary who formerly
abandoned her to me. Perhaps they know her family; and when she gets out
of St. Lazare, why, the matter will get too hot for that old brute,
Jacques Ferrand. Some one comes,--ah, it is the pale lady who was
dressed in men's clothes at the _tapis-franc_ of the ogress, and with
the tall fellow who just left me, the same that the _fourline_ and I
robbed by the excavations near Notre-Dame," added the Chouette, as she
saw Sarah appear at the extremity of the walk. "Here's another job for
me, I see; and this little lady must have something to do with our
having carried off La Goualeuse from the farm. If she pays well for
another job of work, why, that will be 'the ticket.'"

As Sarah approached the Chouette, whom she saw again for the first time
since their rencontre at the _tapis-franc_, her countenance expressed
the disdain, the disgust, which persons of a certain rank feel when they
come in contact with low wretches whom they take as tools or
accomplices.

Thomas Seyton, who, until now, had actively served the criminal
machinations of his sister, although he considered them as all but
futile, had refused any longer to continue this contemptible part,
conse