Jacques Collin
once more. The warder was astounded to find that the Spanish priest
needed no telling as to the way to the prison-yard. The perfect actor
forgot his part; he went down the corkscrew stairs in the Tour Bonbec as
one who knew the Conciergerie.

"Bibi-Lupin is right," said the turnkey to himself; "he is an old
stager; he is Jacques Collin."

At the moment when _Trompe-la-Mort_ appeared in the sort of frame to his
figure made by the door into the tower, the prisoners, having made their
purchases at the stone table called after Saint-Louis, were scattered
about the yard, always too small for their number. So the newcomer was
seen by all of them at once, and all the more promptly, because
nothing can compare for keenness with the eye of a prisoner, who in a
prison-yard feels like a spider watching in its web. And this comparison
is mathematically exact; for the range of vision being limited on all
sides by high dark walls, the prisoners can always see, even without
looking at them, the doors through which the warders come and go, the
windows of the parlor, and the stairs of the Tour Bonbec--the only exits
from the yard. In this utter isolation every trivial incident is an
event, everything is interesting; the tedium--a tedium like that of a
tiger in a cage--increases their alertness tenfold.

It is necessary to note that Jacques Collin, dressed like a priest who
is not strict as to costume, wore black knee breeches, black stockings,
shoes with silver buckles, a black waistcoat, and a long coat of
dark-brown cloth of a certain cut that betrays the priest whatever he
may do, especially when these details are completed by a characteristic
style of haircutting. Jacques Collin's wig was eminently ecclesiastical,
and wonderfully natural.

"Hallo!" said la Pouraille to le Biffon, "that's a bad sign! A rook!
(sanglier, a priest). How did he come here?"

"He is one of their 'narks'" (trucs, spies) "of a new make,"
replied Fil-de-Soie, "some runner with the bracelets" (marchand de
lacets--equivalent to a Bow Street runner) "looking out for his man."

The gendarme boasts of many names in French slang; when he is after a
thief, he is "the man with the bracelets" (marchand de lacets); when he
has him in charge, he is a bird of ill-omen (hirondelle de la Greve);
when he escorts him to the scaffold, he is "groom to the guillotine"
(hussard de la guillotine).

To complete our study of the prison-yard, two more of the